In the fall of every year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) releases a report on how they believe the upcoming winter will compare to winters of the past. Their report for this winter called for most of the lower peninsula to have a more “mild” winter than Michiganders are used to.
Excluding the months of January and February, Michigan has had a mild winter. In comparison to an average of snowfall in years in the past, Grand Rapids still falls 4.5 inches shy of what its citizens are used to at this point in the season. Additionally, Michigan has had almost 12 inches less snow than last year.
The real problem isn’t how much snow but the timing of it, the majority of these inches came during the month of January.
Furthermore, a large portion of this snow came during 2019’s January polar vortex. This caused most West Michigan schools, including Northview, to close for the whole week of January 28, raking in five snow days in five consecutive days. Along with the ice storm last week, the total snow days in the 2018-19 school year was brought to twelve.
The worst part however, is that Michigan schools only are allotted six cancellation days per school year (whether that be weather or building related). This number is based on the requirement that schools must provide at least 180 days of education as well as 1,098 minutes.
So, what happens when schools break this number?
After schools break their six day limit, an application is released that allows school superintendents to ask for three more cancellation days. In these applications, the superintendent must state why they believe their district deserves more days off school. A reason that could be cited would be that during the state of emergency, there was no way that schools could have met.
However, Dr. Scott Korpak, Northview’s superintendent, said that he and many other schools in the area may not need to apply for these snow days.
On Monday, February 4, many schools in the area met with Senator Peter MacGregor and Representative Bill Huizenga.
“A large portion of our conversation was about snow days,” Korpak said.
One idea introduced was new legislation that would give many schools more snow days, without having to apply for them. This essentially “forgives” some of the days where school was cancelled.
If this legislation does not come through, the application will still stand to obtain three more snow days.
The worst case scenario would be students having to stay longer into the summer than originally intended. But, because the M-STEP and SAT tests have not been delayed, Korpak said, “My gut is that…the last day of school will be on June 7, as scheduled.”
