With one more unused emergency day scheduled, District 203 officials have made no plans to cancel planned holidays

By Staff Writer Shreya Narayan

Although nearby districts have altered their calendars to make up for the four cold weather cancellations thus far, District 203 still has time before it needs to make such accommodations, according to assistant principal Jeff Howard.

According to Howard, the district will consider alternate plans once the number of cancelled days exceeds the allotted five emergency days.

“Because we’re still within the five emergency days that are on the calendar,” said Howard, “eliminating institute time or adjusting the schedule [has not yet been discussed].”

The Illinois State Board of Education School Code mandates a minimum of 185 days of instruction per year. If a school does not meet this requirement, funding may be lost for each day under 185.

According to Deputy Superintendent Kaine Osburn, in the event that District 203 surpasses its allotted five emergency days, the district will either hold school on holidays, such as President’s Day, or wait for further instruction from the state level.

Osburn said one option for the district is to apply for an “act of God” exemption day, in order to continue receiving state aid.

However, no plans will be considered until all five emergency days are used.

The district does have the ability to call “late start” days. In this case, the school day would start two hours later in order to assure safer transportation. The benefit of the late start is that it eliminates the need to cancel a full day of school, lessening the number of necessary additional days at the end of the year.

However, late start days are most useful when conditions improve throughout the morning hours, such as when snowfall stops, allowing roads to be cleared. Howard said late start days were not used for any of the four cold days this semester because the district did not believe the temperatures would improve throughout the day.

“Obviously, no one wants to go to school later [in the year], but I think decisions need to be made in the present based on the current circumstances,” said Howard. “I think it’s in the students’ best interest when they do make the decision [to cancel school].”

As of now, the graduation date for the class of 2014 will not be affected in any way, but final exams for underclassmen will be pushed back, according to Howard.