Marysville School’s students have several more closures before they need to worry about extra days being tacked on the end of the year.
Today marked the district’s second calamity day for the 2017-2018 school year.
This year the district is making up those two days March 9 and April 2. Marysville Assistant Superintendent Jonathan Langhals said generally, if the school misses one day, it first designates April 2 as a makeup day. He said the reason March 9 isn’t first is because it’s a teacher in-service day, and the district wants to “protect” it.
Langhals also said those two days being earlier in the year allow the students to retain the momentum they’d built up. Tacking on extra days at the end of the year is less helpful, since students are winding down for the year.
He said that earlier period in the Spring is a “more impactful time for learning.”
After those two days, the district can go another five calamity days without needed to make them up. If the school still declares more closures after that, there are three days worth of “blizzard bags,” which are schoolwork assignments given during snow days.
According to Langhals, the district immediately makes up those two days to give parents somewhat of a heads up. Having two days immediately built in that will likely be used allows families to plan around them.
“We hope to give families plenty of time to make arrangements,” he said.
Finally, if this winter ends up forcing the district to keep closing after that, the district would add days in May only if the district hadn’t met its minimum instructional hours for the year. Langhals said that minimum is 910 hours for K-6, and 1,001 hours for 7-12.
He noted that this winter would have to take an extreme turn for that final need to arise.
According to Langhals, when all is said and done, teachers and officials would much rather snow days didn’t happen at all.
“In the end, (we) would rather kids be in school,” he said.