Frigid temperatures, slippery sidewalks and impassable roads caused by a winter storm last weekend forced severa school systems in the D.C. area to close for a majority of the week, if not the entire week.
Now, parents are wondering whether makeup days are coming and what the rest of the school year may look like.
In Prince George’s County, Maryland, five days are built into their calendar for weather-related closures, but the snowstorm has already cost the school district seven days.
School district officials will present a modified calendar to the school board Thursday that could add two teaching days to make up for some of those that have been lost to the storm.
District spokesperson Denise Douglas said the school system is considering a teaching day on Presidents’ Day, Feb. 16, and possibly adding an additional day at the end of the school year.
“We’re trying to avoid going into the Monday through Friday of spring break,” she said. “We could ask them to open up on Presidents’ Day and then we really don’t want to extend the school year, but that could be by a day or so.”
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But if there’s another big weather event between now and then, that could be a problem.
“If we do see another snow event that comes to this level, we may have to look at virtual options,” Douglas said. “We clearly are trying to avoid going into a fourth week in June.”
Fairfax County schools respond to criticism
Across the D.C. area, several school districts have faced criticism for shutting down for more than a week, as government-run plows and private contractors struggled to remove the icy snow and sleet.
Now, the head of Fairfax County Public Schools is defending her decision to give students another snow day on Monday.
Some parents were angry over the call to close schools, but Superintendent Michelle Reid said the decision was made because many streets and sidewalks in the county were still full of snow and ice.
Reid said work to clear the wintry mess on school property has been going on for days.
“We’ve had more than 1,000 members of our school staff during the storm and following the storm … clearing 40,000 parking spaces and 400 acres of paved areas,” she said. “I am very proud of our staff and our community partners for working incredibly hard to get us ready to go back to school.”
Nearly 130,000 students take buses to school each day, and another 50,000 either walk to school or get rides from their parents. But, Reid said, school leaders drove around the county over the weekend and saw many school bus stops and sidewalks still had not been cleared.
“We want to make sure that our walkers can safely get to school and safely get to their bus stops, and that’s a nuanced determination,” she said.
If the winter brings more bad weather, Fairfax County Public Schools still has additional available snow days built into its school year calendar.
“We generally build in 10 days for emergency weather conditions, and (Monday) would be day number four,” the superintendent said.
Reid said she’s hoping warmer temperatures would help conditions improve.
Fairfax County Public Schools will be open Tuesday on a two-hour delay.
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