Snow may stall summer plans for Tri-City families

Your student’s summer plans may change depending on the decisions school boards make in the next few weeks.

Snow kept students home for seven days at Pasco and Kennewick schools, while Richland students missed six days. With the promise of warmer weather around the corner, school boards are starting to decide how many of those days students will still be in school.

Pasco has plans to address snow makeup days at its meeting next Tuesday. Kennewick is starting to examine options the next day.

Richland will follow with a discussion at its March 26 meeting.

While Kennewick and Pasco schools built two snow days into their schedules and Richland has a third day on its calendar, the districts so far haven’t said much about their plans.

School districts need to meet a pair of state requirements: Students need to spend 180 days in class as well as get an average of 1,027 hours of instruction each year.

State of emergency provides flexibility

Gov. Jay Inslee’s state of emergency declaration gives the schools some flexibility on the 180-day requirement. They can ask for a waiver for up to five of the days missed.

The districts can’t get the other requirement waived, and what isn’t clear is how many days students will need to make up because of that.

“We want to thank our community for having patience during the recent school delays and closures due to inclement weather,” Kennewick school officials said in a statement on Monday. “It’s never easy to make these decisions and we do our best to prioritize the safety of our students, families and staff.”

While Kennewick is the only district to release a formal statement about the snow, Pasco’s Public Affairs Director Shane Edinger said district leaders are working with the unions to come up with a solution.

Pasco’s board meets at 6:30 p.m. at the district office, located at 1215 W. Lewis St. Kennewick’s board meets at 5:30 p.m. at the district’s office, located at 1000 W. Fourth Ave.

This is the second time in the past few years that school districts needed to make up lost time because of snow. A series of snowstorms in late 2016 and early 2017 meant students missed 10 days of class in Kennewick and Pasco, and nine days in Richland.

To meet state requirements, the schools canceled early release days and extended classes by five days.

Will seniors graduate on time?

The districts’ decisions could mean graduating seniors need to spend some more time in class.

State rules allow seniors to get out of class five days earlier than underclassmen, but school districts reduced that on their schedules to three days after the 2017 snowstorms.

The districts’ next steps will hinge on whether they need to push the school year past June 14. If they do, school districts could do what they did in 2017: hold classes on Saturdays.

The senior Saturdays brought students in to participate in a variety of activities including tours of Hanford’s B Reactor, help preparing for Advanced Placement tests and community service opportunities.

Prosser, Finley and Columbia school districts pushed graduation back by a week because of the 2017 storms.