By Ellie Spinosa

Staff Writer

    One, two, three, four… the call for no school keeps getting repeated day after day, meanwhile Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools (WS/FCS) sits in a snowy white coat for the first time in years. You might get excited about your day off at first, enjoying snow activities like sledding, snowball fights, and making snowmen, but what you might not realize is that these are days you have to make up.

    With snow and ice comes canceling school and finding how to make up the time lost, many decisions have to be made. A team of central office administrators is in charge of making those decisions, and the Board of Education must approve the decisions for the schedule change.

    There are many things they have to consider when making these decisions, such as road conditions and visibility. The roads need to be safe for cars, along with buses, to ensure the safety of students and staff.

    

“Unfortunately we did not plan ahead for weather days because of our past history,” Board of Education member Richard Watts said.  It was acknowledged that they did not plan for snow due to the lack of snow received in the past. They planned the 2024-2025 calendar for 1044 total hours spent at school. The state requires at least 1025 hours, but with the days that have been missed this year, we would only be at 1000 hours. Two of the days were forgiven, still leaving us thirteen hours that needed to be made up. 

    There were two makeup options proposed by WS/FCS, one being to add fifteen minutes to the school day starting on February 3rd. The other option is to add three extra school days.

    “Fifteen minutes really does affect their afterschool programs; it affects tutoring, jobs,” Board of Education member Sabrina Coone said. “There was a student that really put it into perspective with dollars and cents and how much we would cause them to lose of their income, which that income is often helping their families.”

     The board took into account the students’ perspectives and the effects it would have on them, mainly with jobs. 

    WS/FCS Instagram posted a survey and asked parents, students, and staff to fill it out for the two options they prefer. The results were close with a sixteen-vote difference between the two. The survey was not going to result in the final decision, but they wanted to gauge the public’s opinion.

    The decision for the makeup days was voted on at the most recent Board of Education meeting. The final decision was to add the extra days. The board has already become aware and started planning for potential days being missed next year and has placed days aside so this does not become a repeated issue next year.