The refrain of the popular Christmas lyrics “and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again” had to be playing over and over again in the heads of parents this past week as the Arctic Vortex descended on the county.  Many school districts are calling Snow Days a no-win situation this winter.  According to the Ohio Department of Education, each school district determines their own policy on cancelling classes.  In the 2014-2015 school year, schools will be switching from a set number of days students must attend classes to a number of hours as decided by the Ohio Legislature.  This new way of calculating contact hours could in fact, eliminate makeup days for districts.

As students returned to classrooms last week in our area, many districts had already exceeded their number of built-in calamity days.  In Clark County, all of the districts except for Northwestern Local had five calamity days built into this school year.  Northwestern planned for seven days due to their move to new school buildings in the early fall.  Moving into the remaining months of winter, districts will need to begin to craft a plan to makeup the missed days that exceed their plan.  Most of those dates for districts around the State of Ohio have been agreed to in advance with their contracted employees and appear to include holding classes on teacher conference days, President’s Day and perhaps using some of the Spring Break dates.  One district in the county, Clark-Shawnee, has elected to use the “Blizzard Bag” concept.  This is an on-line option that some Ohio schools have elected to embrace that provides students with assignments to be completed.  There are guidelines for the use of Blizzard Bags with hazardous weather conditions being one of those school closing options for their use.  Other closings that qualify for this option include disease epidemic, damage to a school building, school bus or other equipment failure, law enforcement emergencies or utility failure. 

The impact on schools is more than the loss of instructional time for some students.  Those on free or reduced lunch can be impacted when school is closed. 

Before and after school programs for working parents are also closed during Snow Days, requiring alternative solutions as businesses often are not closed when weather conditions cause delays or closings.  Classroom teachers are working to meet the curriculum goals prior to the mandated testing dates that fall in the spring term of the school year.  The impact of closing schools can also affect the lessons planned for those certain days, and teachers must make changes to cover the materials.  Frequent closings can also hinder the continuity of instruction for many classrooms over the course of a severe winter.

Greenon Local Schools looked into utilizing the “Blizzard Bags” last week, but found that the Board of Education had to approve their use by August 1 of 2013.  Greenon’s Communications Coordinator, Megan Anthony, said the district “places a high value on instructional time in the classroom but it's something we can consider going forward,” regarding the Blizzard Bags. 

Anthony also said it worth noting that when the calamity law changes from days to hours in July of 2014, the Greenon district will have “significantly above the state minimum in terms of hours in the classroom,” she said, “So we anticipate more flexibility for calamity days under the new law.”  As of now, Greenon has used five calamity days district-wide, but Greenon High School and Hustead Elementary have used six, due to a boiler problem and a power outage, respectively.  The high school used five calamity days total last year, and the remaining district buildings used four.  Greenon’s Board of Education includes make-up days when they approve their calendar each year, and currently has make-up days scheduled for March 24 and 25 during Spring Break, and then again after the last day of school for students, beginning May 30.  The Greenon Board of Education may amend that calendar if necessary.

If the Farmer’s Almanac predictions for winter are any indication of what parents and teachers can expect moving forward to spring of 2014, it would seem as if there will be several more school closings before sunny days and warm weather return to our area.