Snow days a tough decision for schools
Photo by JOSH McDONALD The empty Kellogg High School during one of the school’s two consecutive snow days.
The wild winter weather has continued to bash the Silver Valley for the last few weeks as freezing cold gave way to full on winter storms.
The Kellogg School District is one of the two Shoshone County school districts that canceled school during these events, but they had multiple days of cancellation, which always prompts the community to voice their frustrations at how the various school districts handle transporting students during rough weather.
Over the last two weeks, the Kellogg School District has been forced to cancel school on three separate occasions, while the Wallace School District has only canceled school once.
This drew the ire of parents who believe that either the Kellogg School District is too willing to cancel school or the Wallace School District doesn’t care about the dangers of transporting their students in these events.
Neither mentality is true.
The Kellogg School District runs from the Rose Lake area all the way to Big Creek, with routes up the North Fork, several gulches, and other areas that don’t get the road clearing attention that the main throughways do.
According to KSD superintendent Dr. Nancy Larsen, there are several factors taken into account before a snow day will be called.
“Our transportation supervisor, Tony Dechand, will inspect roads early in the morning (beginning at 3 a.m. usually) to determine if a significant safety hazard exists for students,” Larsen said. “Tony then reports to those findings between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and we make the call.”
For Dechand, making this call is never done lightly — because every time a snow day is called his highly trained drivers lose out on day’s worth of pay.
“We definitely don’t take these decisions lightly,” Larsen said. “Tony's motto is, ‘Kids First, Staff Second, Equipment Third.’ I have also adopted his motto when making these decisions. We hope there are no more days off due to weather conditions this year. School attendance is so important.”
The Wallace School District has always prided itself on being a school district that could keep school in session when others had to cancel, mainly because the bulk of their students live in either Wallace, Osburn, or Silverton —and they can completely avoid highway travel if necessary and take their time on Silver Valley Road, which runs the length of the district.
However, when even those back roads can’t be maintained, suddenly the school is forced to take action.
As Dr. Larsen mentioned previously, attendance is paramount for public schools and they are really only allotted a set number of days that they can use for situations like snow days before they have to start adjusting their schedules, which can result in things like a change in the date of graduations or the last day of school.
“Calculating the amount of days that can be missed can be tricky because there are different requirements from the state for different grade levels,” Dr. Larsen said. “Also, with block scheduling at the high school, each day is not a simple one day. The state requires hours and so each day is calculated accordingly. With that said, we estimate that we have three ‘days’ covered at all grade levels. If we go over that amount we can appeal to the state for forgiving some time. With known weather conditions, they are pretty understanding.”
For more information regarding any of the local schools and their snow day policies contact your local school district office.