Area Districts Wrestling With Mandate To Meet Required Days in School Year
By Brad Segall
ROYERSFORD, Pa. (CBS) -- The kids may enjoy the days off, but they'll pay for it somewhere down the road. Yet another snow day for area school districts this winter season means some of those districts are now adjusting their calendars for the rest of the year.
For the Spring-Ford Area School District, today was snow day number 5. The district already had three extra days built into the schedule at the end of the year, but now students will be going to school on February 14th (which was an in-service day for teachers) and February 17th, which is President's Day.
But what happens if there is still more snow?
"We have April 16th, 17th, and 21st identified as emergency makeup days, so we have three more," says schools superintendent Dr. David Goodin. "But once we get to those three more, then we'll have to tack (additional days) onto the end of the school year."
That would be in mid to late June, when it's hot.
But when it comes to deciding whether to close the schools for snow, Dr. Goodin says, the calendar takes a back seat. He says it's all about making sure his students and staff can get in and back home safely.
Meanwhile, the Hatboro-Horsham School District has already closed school four days this school year for inclement weather. Two of those days have already been scheduled for makeup, and superintendent Dr. Curtis Griffin plans to meet with the school board later this month to figure out the other two.
He says they can be tacked on at the end of the year, or there are in-service days that can be turned into regular school days. But he still has concerns.
"We can deal with what we currently have," he tells KYW Newsradio. "The question is, there's another storm potentially predicted for this coming Sunday evening. And there's a lot of February and a lot of March!"