December snows bring extra May school days

Severe winter weather conditions of snow, ice and wind in December causing cancellation of classes at Plymouth County schools have added two to three days to the end of the school year. [Click to enlarge]

Plymouth County students may like the announcement of "no school" on those snowy or icy mornings, but they may wish the winter weather had been nicer when May rolls around.

That's because those "snow days" will be made up at the end of the school year, which has already been extended by two or three days in county schools as of Jan. 9.

Le Mars Community Schools and Gehlen Catholic Schools students have already had two snow days in December and will make those days up May 27 and 28.

"We were scheduled to end on May 26, the day after Memorial Day," said LCS Superintendent Dr. Todd Wendt. He added that all days of school needing to be made up will be added to the end of the school year.

Gehlen Catholic High School principal Jeff Alesch said they follow the LCS schedule.

"They actually call and cancel," Alesch said of LCS officials. "We follow Le Mars Community's schedule, late starts and early dismissals due to snow. All our make up days are added to the end of the school year."

"We really appreciate what Dr. Wendt and the district do for us regarding snow days," Alesch added. That includes going out early and checking road conditions and monitoring those conditions.

Remsen-Union and Remsen St. Mary's students have two days to make up so far this year.

"We'll make those days up at the end of the school year," said R-U Superintendent Ken Howard. "By our master contract, everything is added at the end of the school year."

"We go by what Remsen-Union has since they bus our students," said Gary Niichel, St. Mary's high school principal.

The last day of school for the Remsen schools was May 20. As of now, students will attend school until May 22.

At Akron-Westfield Community Schools, students have already missed three full days of school.

"We had a couple of late starts and early outs, too," said Superintendent Ron Flynn.

"That's quite a few days this early in the school year. Most times our days off come in January, February and March," Flynn said. He noted it's been the school district's policy to tack on the make up days at the end of the school year.

"Everybody likes a snow day, but they don't all like to make it up later," Flynn said. "The seniors are the lucky ones. They're the only ones who don't have to make them up."

Flynn hopes the weather holds and they don't have to call more days off.

"It gets tough when you have a nice May and you go a few days longer than schools around you," Flynn said.

A-W's transportation director checks the roads early and makes the call to Flynn, who also monitors what other schools in the area are doing.

One of Flynn's first calls is to the Snowcap notification system and then online notifications to media and parents.

"The word gets out fast," Flynn said. "I've had people hear about the delay or cancellation before I've completed my calls."

Hinton Community Schools also has three days to make up, according to Superintendent Al Steen.

"We will be adding them to the end of the school year, we don't have days built in to the schedule," Steen said. That moves the last day of school from May 22 to May 28.

"We don't need another December," Steen said of the weather conditions. "Hopefully we'll get a break and won't have any more snow days."

At Kingsley-Pierson Schools, the last day of school is now pushed to May 22 after the district missed three days of school due to snow in December, according to Superintendent Scott Bailey.

"It's been unusual to have this many days off at this point of the school year," Bailey said.

Bailey personally makes the early morning trek out to check the road conditions before determining whether to delay or call off school.

"That last Monday before Christmas, I was on four gravel roads. I almost got stuck on three of them. On the fourth one, I turned around. I knew it wasn't good," Bailey said.