Snow Day Consequences

From cutting into Summer to taking days off of Spring Break, many rumors have been circulating about how the recent snow days accumulated by the Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) will affect the rest of the school year.

However, as of now, the schedule for the remainder of the year will stay the same, with school still slotted to end on May 26 for all students, excluding seniors.

According to Article 11 in the 2009 Kansas Code, students attending grades nine through 11 are required to have a minimum of 1,116 school hours each year, while students in grade twelve are required to have a minimum of 1,086 hours.

SMSD allots room in the calendar for four snow days. However, because of the way the Shawnee Mission schedule is set up, the district should be able to make the cut despite having six snow days.

“I think because of the amount of minutes that we have in our schedule, we’re always over the limit,” Principal Karl Krawitz said. “So that’s what we’re checking, but we think that we will have accumulated that extra two days.”

Besides being behind in classes, the only effect students should experience from the snow days is two fewer late starts in April and May to gain back some precious hours.

But if Mother Nature hits again with another, seventh snow day, the district will have almost no choice but to extend the school year into summer vacation. There is just isn’t enough time available to make up for all the days.

“How can you capture time?” Krawitz said. “We could change passing periods from seven minutes to six, but if you’re on a block day that’s only four minutes. We’d be nickel-dimeing our way, and we would need to capture big time.”

As for now, summer vacation is still set to start on the scheduled day, but with the winter that we’ve been experiencing so far, nothing is final.