Clark County School Districts Working to Make Up Missed Days
Tuesday, March 5th, 2019 -- 11:53 AM
-Our wild Wisconsin winter is causing local school districts headaches as they work to make up the snow and inclement weather days.Schools tend to build inclement weather days into their calendars, but Wisconsin’s 2018-19 winter season has thrown a wrench into that plan. School districts must comply with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instructions requirement for direct instructional time. That time is as little as 437 hours for kindergartners and increases to 1,137 hours for 7th-12th grade. This method does give districts a bit of break when it comes to makeup time, especially compared to the old requirement which mandated students have 180 days of instruction time. Neillsville District Administrator John Gaier says the Neillsville School District has used 10 snow/inclement weather days and 2 hours. Of that time, the district currently needs to make up 2 days and 6 hours with the rest forgiven. Neillsville will be eliminating the last 3 remaining late start days and have normal school on those days. They’ll also have normal school days on March 28th and 29th, which students initially had off.
Granton Superintendent Scott Woodington said they’ve had 10 snow/inclement weather days so far. They have rescheduled 2 days so far, March 25th and May 13th, which were originally scheduled as professional development days. They will be discussing the rest of the makeup days at their next board meeting on March 11th. Greenwood District Administrator Todd Felhofer stated the Greenwood School district will be making their time up on Friday March 15th, Friday March 29th, Tuesday April 23rd and Thursday June 6th. Loyal District Administrator Cale Jackson said that Loyal has missed 10 days this year and they are currently scheduled to make up 2.5 days. The student will now have school on March 8th, a half day on March 29th and a full day on April 1st.
Owen-Withee District Administrator Bob Houts said the district has used 9 closures since the cold snap at the end of January. Owen-Withee hasn’t had a full week of school since the week of January 21st-25th. The Owen-Withee School Board has forgiven the first two days. The third day is made up and days after that are made up at the discretion of the board as long as it meeting the DPI’s mandated hours. Currently, the district has March 15th now scheduled as a regular school day. They have also added 10 minutes to each school day, which began February 18th, which will give them back two full days by the end of the year. The district is still three days short and the board will decide how to make those up at their next meeting on March 11th.
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