Snow Days Piling Up

No waiting.  Already a number of area schools have closed or will start two hours late Tuesday.

Before Thanksgiving some schools have already closed as many as three days, so we wanted to know if this will disrupt schools or holidays going forward.

“It surprised us.  This has been an odd year as compared to what we’ve had in the recent past,“ said Jack Barnes, superintendent, Sullivan County Schools.

School officials in the Tri-Cities area do not remember the last time they canceled school before Thanksgiving because of snow.

“We’ve closed two days prior to Thanksgiving this year because of snow,” said Alan Lee, superintendent, Washington County Virginia Schools.

However, they won’t use the past two weeks as an indication of what’s to come in the next few months.

“I’m not going to begin to predict,“ said Lee.

Schools are required to have 180 school days per year, so any days missed have to be made up.  Some schools build snow days into their school calendars; others just tack it on the end of the school year.

“We caution parents not to schedule vacation based on the original calendar because it could change,“ said Lee.

In Sullivan County, they try not to cut into the summer breaks too much by shortening breaks within the school year.

“When it’s been really snowy and bad, we have lengthened the school day.  We’ve even gone on Saturdays,“ said Barnes.

Sullivan county students are already scheduled to make up a day on December 19th, their first day of winter break.

It’s a decision school officials don’t take lightly.

“The ones I worry about the most are the young people who drive.  If we have school, we have several hundred teenagers who are driving to school,“ said Lee.

They know it also has a heavy impact.

“If we have school on a day when the road conditions are not good, I put people at risk.  If we don’t have school, I create problems for parents who have jobs,“ said Lee.

The decision to hold school or not can be controversial depending on where parents live.  Bad conditions can exist in part of the district, but not everywhere.