Snow days: A joy for students, a challenge for parents

Buses at the First Student bus yard in Belmont sat idle yet again yesterday, the second day in a row that local schools were canceled due to snow. (Adam Drapcho/Laconia Daily Sun)

By THOMAS P. CALDWELL, LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — Shannon Buttermore has just about had it with snow days.

With a 13-year-old son at Laconia High School and two younger children at Elm Street School, her life gets more complicated when school is not in session, as was the case on Monday and Tuesday.

Buttermore ends up going to work late on such days. Sometimes she will bring her children with her to work, as she owns her own sign shop, or she may drop them off at her mother-in-law’s house.

“I’m lucky because I have a mother-in-law close by, but a lot of people have to get their kids into daycare or take the day off from work,” Buttermore said.

The more snow days, the more the school year has to get extended into summer to make up for the time lost.

“Oh my gosh, there have been so many snow days, it’s crazy,” she said. “The summer vacation will be so short.”

She said she would be in favor of eliminating April school vacation time to make up for lost days.

Meanwhile, her kids, like children all over, are happy when school is closed.

“They are excited,” Buttermore said. “On Tuesday, my sister-in-law brought them to Gunstock and they skied and snowboarded all day long. They also played video games and built snowmen and forts.”

Day care

A daycare center could be an option for parents to place their children on snow days, but those businesses aren’t always open during big storms.

Connie Pelletier, executive director of the Inter-Lakes Day Care Center and Nursery School in Meredith, said the business was open yesterday, but was closed on Monday.

“It was a difficult decision to close on Monday, but we had parents who sort of assumed we might close because we closed earlier this year in a previous storm,” she said. “One parent commented that she would rather have us close in the summer when she would enjoy taking a vacation day for her two children.

“Most people have grandparents or other family members who can take care of the children for a day, also here in the Lakes Region there are a lot of parents who work for construction companies that aren’t that busy this time of year and might have a day off during the week.”

Summer extension

The Shaker Regional School District in the Belmont area has accumulated nine no-school days because of this winter’s snowstorms.

Superintendent Michael Tursi said he expects the school year to be extended into late June.

“The way March has been, it looks like a storm cycle every week,” he said. “When we have cancellations, it impacts the school calendar and each storm brings us further into the calendar.”

He said the school district already has moved two teacher workshop days to the end of the school year so the scheduled staff training days in March and May can be used as instructional days. Doing so allows students to get out for the summer closer to the original end-of-school date.

There are no plans to shorten the April vacation to make up snow days, but Tursi said there is the option of meeting state requirements by counting instructional hours, rather than days.

Gilford Superintendent Kirk Beitler said his district has had eight snow days.

“It’s a mess,” he said.

Prior to the two snow days this week, he was “feeling good about having students leave on June 21, but this probably puts us into a different situation, and there’s a potential of more snow next week.”

Like Tursi, Beitler is waiting to see what happens this month before making a firm recommendation to the School Board about how to make up for the lost time.

“We’ve got some time,” he said, “and I plan to have a proposal for the April 2 meeting.”

The option of counting hours is increasingly appealing, he said.

The state requires 180 days of school, or 990 hours of instruction, for students in grades 7-12. The requirement for grades 1-6 is 945 hours.

While Gilford’s school day runs between six and six-and-a-half hours, only instructional time counts, and during testing, students are not on campus for the full day.

“We’ve done the math,” Beitler said, “and we have over 1,000 hours with 180 days. We could potentially shave off a couple of days and still meet the hourly requirements.”

No-school decisions

Deciding whether to call off school can be a difficult one, but safety is the biggest concern.

Beitler said the New Hampshire Department of Safety, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, provides a call-in service for superintendents, providing the latest weather information and answering questions about road conditions and travel.

“They provide us with information and give us an opportunity to ask questions,” Beitler said, “but they’re very clear about it being our decision.”

He said he engages in conversations with other superintendents, the bus company, and the road agent, and the Gilmanton principal speaks with that town’s road agent.

Yesterday, based on the information he had about the amount of snow that had continued to fall during the night and the amount that was still on the roads, he first called for a two-hour delayed opening.

“By 6 a.m., it was apparent we needed to close school,” he said.

Staff concerns

Snow days also create problems for school employees. Contracts with salaried employees provide for a specific number of workdays — 186 in Gilford’s case.

“Staff time would have to be made up by contract,” Beitler said. Normally, that is fulfilled by professional development workshops.

For hourly support staff, it is a different matter.

“We gave them the opportunity to make that up last year,” Beitler said. “It’s generally through professional development or other work related to their position.”

Tursi said the regular Shaker teaching staff will be working beyond the end-of-school date for students, but “we often don’t provide extra time for the support staff, but try to minimize the impact on their fiscal well-being as much as possible. I know they rely on their paychecks, as we all do, and school cancellations affect that. But most often, our hands are tied.”

He said that, last year, the district offered a couple of extra training days for support staff.

“Some of them start summer jobs early, so it’s not something we required, but we do provide those opportunities if they feel they’re able to take advantage of them.”

There are no plans yet for this year.

“We’re not engaged in those conversations at this time,” Tursi said, “but we’ll start the conversations. We have a great relationship with the teachers’ association and the support staff organization.”

Both superintendents shared the view that we’ve had enough snow this year.

“I’m tired of snow,” Beitler said. “I like to ski, but this is crazy.”

Tursi agreed: "I'm an avid skier, but this has had an impact on our schools. I'm looking forward to spring."

Rick Green contributed to this story.