This story first published at thekansan.com Feb. 18
By Chad Frey
Newton Kansan
When the snow flies school administrators have decisions to make — have school, delay it or cancel it. And each decision has an effect on the school calendar.
Every calendar has a number of days “built in” for cancelations, in the case of Newton USD 373 the district built in 8.8 days for kindergarten through eighth grade, 7.4 days for grades nine through 11 and 5.3 for the class of 2025 set to graduate this spring.
The calendar is not really calculated in days, but in hours. The senior class requires 1,085 while others are required 1,116.
For some schools in the district the cancellation of classes for Feb. 18 has put them near the limits — meaning another set of decisions could be pending.
“We have used anywhere from six to seven days, depending upon the attendance center,” said Fred Van Ranken, superintendent of schools on Feb. 18. “Sana Fe had the boiler issue, thus they have used seven. NHS had a utility issue, and have used 6.5.”
That extra day for Santa Fe was Jan. 31. And as this story was being written, Newton USD 373 canceled school for Feb. 19 – meaning add a day for every school in the district to Van Ranken’s numbers.
Santa Fe has, as of Feb. 19, .4 days remaining. Grades nine through 12 had .no days or hours left to give — the senior class with almost a full day of deficit.
A discussion of how to handle the senior class is expected at the next board of education meeting, with discussions for other student groups to come if the district finds three is a need to do so.
“The BOE will ultimately decide [on makeup days] but with it being seniors that have the issue, we will adjust their days. This will be an agenda item on Monday. I will go into more detail at that time,” Van Ranken said.
VanRanken told The Kansan the plan is to use late starts if at all possible for the rest of winter if more storms come.
“That is when we will utilize late starts (2 hours delay) as it does not affect our hours,” Van Ranken said.
By 7 a.m. Feb. 17 two inches of snowfall was recorded by the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow network near Hesston. Near Harvey County West Park the network recorded 1.8 inches. Near McClain one inch was recorded, while 1.1 inches was recorded near Newton.
Snow continued to fall throughout the day, and windchills dipped with gusty winds.
As the Harvey County Commission began meeting at 10 a.m., an hour late, windchill of -16 was recorded by Accuweather. That would drop to -20 during the day.
