How will local schools make up missed days after the two snows we’ve had?

After Winter Storms Jonas and Olympia dumped 13-plus inches of snow on the Heart of Virginia, area school divisions are figuring out how to make up for missed instruction.

“We have missed eight days so far,” said Dr. David Smith, Prince Edward’s superintendent of schools. “We have to show 180 days or 990 clock hours for the year.”

Smith said that nine days were already built into the

school calendar for missed days.

“We’re using the make-up days we planned into the calendar,” Smith said.

Those days include September 18, October 16, February 12 and 15, March 11, April 22, May 25, 26 and 27.

According to Smith, the division is able to miss one more day of school before any modifications are needed to the school calendar.

In that case, the make-up days will be determined by the school board.

Smith said when the division plans out the school’s academic calendar, caution is used to allow for a realistic number of days that may be missed.

According to Dr. Cecil Snead, Buckingham’s superintendent, President’s Day was originally supposed to be one of the division’s make-up days for school closings that occurred during Winter Storm Jonas.

“We also plan to use March 9 as a makeup day (originally a teacher’s work day) and April 4 as a makeup day (originally a professional development day),” Snead said.

In Cumberland, Dr. Amy Griffin, the school superintendent, said make up days would fall on April 18, May 19, 20, 23, 24 and 25.

According to Griffin, the days were selected for a total of six missed school days due to weather-related incidents.

The make-up days would place the end of the third nine weeks at March 16 with report cards going home on March 23, she said.

The fourth nine weeks’ interim would be on April 22 with the end of the period on May 25, according to Griffin.