Callaway school officials discuss district plans to make up snow days

With winter weather and hazardous road conditions causing cancellations for the third day this week, Callaway County school administrators shared their districts' plans for making up the missed class time.

Because the calendar for Fulton Public Schools is based on hours of instruction time rather than days, Superintendent Jacque Cowherd said students are not likely to have to attend any make-up days this year.

"We have an adequate number of hours to make up about nine days, so we're not anticipating adding on to the school year," Cowherd said.

Though there was little accumulation from Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Cowherd said it was not the type of situation in which the district would go to its new snow routes.

"Snow routes are only effective if you've got inches of snow - it addresses when buses aren't able to make turn arounds," he said. "Today's issue was the forecast of freezing rain coming in at 7 a.m. We knew we had treacherous roads - especially around the middle school - and if we had freezing rain on top of that we would have serious problems getting students to school."

Unlike Fulton, North Callaway R-I students already have added three days to their schedule this year because of the snow.

Superintendent Bryan Thomsen said North Callaway had built in Jan. 20, Feb. 17 and May 23 as snow make-up days.

"If we miss any more, we start cutting into spring break," Thomsen said.

As for the chances of calling off school again today with more wet weather in the forecast, he said district officials would wait and evaluate road conditions "first thing in the morning."