With the record cold this year, we have already had four snow days that will cause the school year to drag on until June 12, as opposed to the previous end of June 6. The snow days also cause a lack of class time for seniors and shortened time to work for AP classes, who have a set test date regardless of snow days. The administration needs to reevaluate the snow day policy and consider alternatives.

While nobody can control the weather, cold and snowy weather is not uncommon to our area, and the District must better consider how to handle things when these occasions arise. There is no escaping snow and cold, and while this year is admittedly worse than most, the District needs to take students’ needs into consideration and reevaluate our policy.

Currently, the calendar is set at the legally required 180 days with 5 emergency days on the end in case of inclement weather or other reasons why school cannot be held, according to Kent Nightlinger, principal.

“There are three ways you can arrange your schedule. One is the way we do it: you set the calendar at 180 days and add emergency days at the end,” Nightlinger said. “The other way you can do it is start with an extra five days on the end and around March, when you’re pretty sure you’re past snow days, you can move the calendar back, and the third is you just set it at 185 days and if you have snow days nothing changes, and if you don’t you could end up going for all 185 days.”

The difference between the first two options is perception, Nightlinger said, as with one it looks like you are adding days and removing days in the other.

In terms of days, both schedules may be the same but perception is a very large part of policies and in this case the current system creates problems. The District must take this into consideration in order to make the most user friendly calendar. Many families do not plan for extra days when scheduling summer trips, causing problems when students have to take finals early, or even miss trips in order to go to school.

“We are supposed to leave for vacation on June 12 which is now the last day and I have to worry about my finals,” Taylor Gold, sophomore, said. “With my schedule for finals I will have to hope my teachers will be nice enough to let me take them early otherwise I don’t know what I will do.”

The change to a system where we move the calendar forward rather than backward would be better for perception. Another alternative is a system where schools can opt out of holidays such as President’s Day or Columbus Day in order to be able to end earlier.

These changes would not have a large impact on the way school is run and would be beneficial to students and faculty.