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Snow days lead to school scheduling headaches: June 3 now the last day for students

Wednesday was the eighth time this school year the Charles City School District has been forced to cancel class due to weather or road conditions. As things stand right now, the final day of classes for students will be Monday, June 3. (Press photo James Grob.)
Wednesday was the eighth day this school year the Charles City School District has been forced to cancel class because of weather or road conditions. As things stand right now, the final day of classes for students will be Monday, June 3. (Press photo James Grob.)
By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Calling off classes was an easy decision for Charles City Superintendent Mike Fisher on Wednesday morning.

The difficult part was calling off classes while his vehicle was stuck in the snow.

“It could have been a dangerous situation, but luckily I was in a place where I was safe,” Fisher said. “I had people who I could call to help me out. I was thinking if I were a high school kid and their car got stuck, what would they have done?”

Wednesday was the eighth time this school year the Charles City School District has canceled class due to weather or road conditions.

As things stand now, the final day of classes for students will be Monday, June 3. The last day of school was originally scheduled for Wednesday, May 29, but the district is obligated to make up all the lost hours.

It’s safe to say that no one wants to be going to class that late, but Fisher said he thought calling off school on Wednesday was the only sensible option — especially when he found himself stuck in a snow drift.

“It was a good reminder of why we keep people safe,” said Fisher, who added that there were no injuries and no major damage. “It was a very good message that yesterday (Wednesday) was not a safe day to go to school.”

Fisher said he was driving north of Charles City, assessing the road conditions on a gravel road, when he came upon a snowdrift that he said was about three feet high and more than 150 yards long.

“Being kind of a southern Iowa redneck, I said, ‘I’m gonna get through it,’ so I hit the gas and got halfway — but did not get through it,” Fisher said. “It was hard as concrete.”

Fisher called CCSD Transportation Director Jerry Mitchell to come pull him out, but that didn’t work, either, as Mitchell also got stuck.

“It’s not a Chevy/Ford thing,” Fisher laughed. “I had a Chevy, he had a Ford — we both got stuck. Thank God for Jim Lundberg and Tim McMurphy. They came and helped pull us out with a tractor, so we were very blessed that people were there.”

Fisher said some of the gravel roads were OK on Wednesday morning, but he was on roads that the county snowplows hadn’t been able to get to yet. He said about 25 percent of the roads were still impassable at 8 a.m.

“The county does a great job,” he said. “It’s dangerous, hard work they do.”

Fisher said the district delivered some donuts to the county workers to thank them for their work — and for the last few weeks, they’ve had a lot of work.

So far this winter, the district has canceled classes on Jan. 22 due to snow, Jan. 28 due to snow and high winds, Jan. 29-31 due to sub-zero temperatures, Feb. 7 due to snow and ice, and Feb.12-13 due to snow and dangerous road conditions.

Fisher said that eight days doesn’t sound all that bad, until you remember that it’s still relatively early in the winter.

“If I told you we’ve had eight snow days and it was April right now, that would be OK,” he said. “But it’s the middle of February, and we’re at eight days. We could get up to 10-12 days before it’s done, and that’s a lot of lost time.”

Charles City has already used some of the extra hours built into the schedule to forgive one snow day. The district will also have partial school days on three days that had been previously scheduled for inservice — Monday, Feb. 18; March 29; and April 19.

On those days students will be let out early and teachers will stay for the remainder of the day to complete their required professional development. Early dismissal times on those dates will be 12:50 p.m. for secondary students and 1 p.m. for elementary students.

There will also be two additional teacher workdays added at the end of the school year. The district will also add two teacher “flex days,” where teachers can make up 16 hours of instruction time after contract hours on weekends or at professional learning at the AEA in June, after school is out.

Fisher said that in all likelihood, from here to the end of the school year, any snow day will add an additional day of class in June.

A district “calendar task force,” composed of staff, bus drivers, secretaries, teachers, parents and students has been meeting with administration and looking at strengths and weaknesses in the calendar system they have, to adjust it accordingly in future school years.

“We’re trying to find if there are things we can do to fill in that lost time and guard against some of this stuff,” Fisher said. “We are looking at ways to keep the school year at a manageable length.”

Rescheduling school events that have been called off due to weather has also proven to be a difficult task for the district. On Monday this week a high school orchestra concert was canceled due to the weather, and on Tuesday, it was a band concert. The district still has not yet been able to reschedule those two events.

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