Jan 26, 2018 4 min read

Area school districts say they already have plans in place to make up days and hours lost because of the recent spate of below-zero wind chills and snowy weather.

The state requires public schools to be in session for 180 days for students, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. If superintendents cancel school and fall below 180 days, then days must be made up. Late starts do not count against the 180-day tally.

Charleroi School District Superintendent Edward Zelich said students already made up one day they missed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“We’re all square,” he said.

The district had about three or four two-hour delays already, he said. Zelich said in elementary classes, the teachers focus on core subjects, like reading and math, on those days. The periods are shortened in high school so students still have all of their classes.

“Teachers are veterans at this,” he said. “This is nothing new. It’s been going on for many years.”

Washington Superintendent James Konrad said the district will use three inclement weather days that were built into the calendar. He said that will push the teachers’ final day back one day.

The district had full instruction on days with two-hour delays by reducing time in each period, he said.

“We want to make sure that we’re offering every opportunity for our students to accelerate their learning through the courses that they have,” he said. “So everything went off as planned. Even with a two-hour delay, students did get a chance to participate in every course they are involved with.”

West Greene Superintendent Brian Jackson said the district has to make up four days already. Those are built into the calendar. Students went to school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to make up a day, he said. They will attend on Presidents Day in February to make up a second day.

They have three days built for spring break so the last two will be made up then, Jackson said. But given it’s just late January, the possibility still looms of having to call more snow days. If that happens, Jackson said, they will be added onto the end of the school year.

He said it’s a lot easier to make up lost time for two-hour delays in the elementary school than high school since the same teacher is with elementary students all day. That allows teachers to move lessons around. The high school maneuvered the schedule so the early classes were not missed every day of a delay, he said.

Belle Vernon Superintendent John D. Wilkinson said so far the district has closed only one day for bad weather and had a couple of delays. The district had planned to have parent-teacher conferences on the Tuesday after Presidents Day in February. Instead, the conferences will be on Presidents Day and students will attend school that Tuesday to make up the missed day, he said.

The district had a modified schedule on the days with late starts so students were not consistently missing the first two periods of school, Wilkinson said. That meant each class was shorter than usual, but students still had each class.

He also agreed elementary classes were easier to adjust because teachers could move lessons around as it worked for them.

Peters Township spokeswoman Shelly Belcher said the district has only had one closing so far.

“We have days built into the calendar so our students and teachers get all of the time back,” she said. “For example, we made up the day off earlier this month by coming in (on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.) Days can also be added on at the end of the school year if we exhaust the four that we build in.”

When Peters has a delay, there is a bell schedule that shortens classes by just a few minutes throughout the day so the impact is minimal, she said.

“At our middle school, they also eliminate the homeroom period to further lessen the impact on the instructional time,” Belcher said.