Yellow Pages
MOUNT VERNON — Those snow days that shut down schools may be fun for the kids at the moment, but then it comes time to pay the piper.
Students and staff in Skagit County’s public schools return to class today after a longer than usual winter break. They also face a three-day extension of the school year between now and June, when the lost days must be accounted for.
Snow and ice on roadways caused Skagit County’s seven school districts to declare three snow days in a row, starting Dec. 17.
But students must still attend 180 days per year, said Anacortes School District Superintendent Chris Borgen, so he and the staff has been busy picking make-up dates..
So far, Anacortes students are slated to make up their days at the end of the school year, June 15, 16 and 17. Three other districts in the county, Burlington-Edison, Concrete and Sedro-Woolley, have also opted to add school days at the end of the school year to make up for the snow days.
Three districts — Conway, La Conner and Mount Vernon — have not yet scheduled make up days, but will as soon as school gets back in session.
“My recommendation is going to be to put them at the end of the year,” said La Conner Superintendent Tim Bruce, “unless we miss more days.”
The last day of school for La Conner, slated for June 16, would instead be Friday, June 19.
School was canceled for three days mostly because it would be difficult or unsafe to transport students to school, Borgen said.
“It’s really the dangers of the road,” Borgen said. “It’s whether we can get our buses around safely with kids.”
Districts often communicate with city and county public works departments when winter weather strikes, said Mount Vernon Superintendent Carl Bruner via e-mail.
“Our transportation department maintains ongoing communication with the city roads department when snow hits,” Bruner said. “We’ve found the city to be responsive and accommodating, to the best of their ability. Given the rarity of these events, there’s only so much they’re equipped to do.”
Because the school district went on break after the bulk of the snow fell, the city of Anacortes was able to borrow the school district’s snow plow for road clearing, said Fred Buckenmeyer cq, public works director.
The city’s plow priorities, Buckenmeyer said, include clearing paths for police, fire, hospital and ambulance use. After that, secondary roads will be cleared. School district bus routes are not considered a plow priority, he said.
A few superintendents said more winter weather would cause them to shoehorn make-up days into the district calendar rather than tacking them onto the end of the school year.
“We’d regroup is probably what we’d do,” Borgen said. “We would look at other breaks and days.”
But students shouldn’t worry about losing spring break just yet. Cliff Mass cq, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist, said weather in the area should return to normal soon.
“‘Normal’ is not what we’ve had for the past two weeks,” Mass said.
The weather in the lowlands should return to temperatures in the 40s and “quite a bit of rain in February,” Mass said. The snow forecast for this week by the National Weather Service will turn to rain, he said, and there is a possibility for heavy rain in the mountains and flooding in regional rivers mid-week.
Cliff Butler, manager of the road maintenance division of Skagit County, said the upper regions of Skagit County are still seeing flurries.
“We still have a lot of compact snow and ice on roads. We made some headway for awhile,” he said. “There are some steeper hills that even if we get up and plow and sand early, (school buses) don’t run them.
“We’re hoping that spring arrives early, but it’s only the second week of winter.”
• Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at .
When will students and staff make up snow days?
• Anacortes: June 15, 16 and 17
• Burlington-Edison: June 15, 16 and 17
• Concrete: June 17, 18 and 19
• Conway: School officials will talk with staff and parents in January to choose the make-up days.
• La Conner: School officials will choose the make up days as a group.
• Mount Vernon: School officials will talk with bargaining groups this week about when to schedule make-up days.
• Sedro-Woolley: Feb. 13, June 15 and 16
