LAKE COUNTY, Ohio — Nearly 470 schools and school districts closed on Tuesday because of bitter cold temperatures.
Madison Local Schools in Lake County is one of them.
“It’s all about the safety, we want to keep kids safe,” said Angela Smith, Superintendent of Madison Local Schools.
The district canceled school for five days at the beginning of December because of snow but Smith said the district is not in danger of having to extend the calendar at the end of the school year.
“Because they switched from days to hours several years ago. I know that we have enough hours that we’re still OK,” explained Smith.
According to the Ohio Department of Education, beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, districts that changed to an hour-based schedule no longer have calamity days. Instead, schools may schedule excess hours above the minimum number, hours missed above the minimum do not have to be made up. But, according to the Ohio Department of Education, if a school closes enough to fall below the minimum number of hours needed the school must extend its scheduled year.
After 38 years in education, Smith said deciding whether to cancel school is still something that keeps her up at night.
“Snow days for superintendents are not the same, they’re very stressful because you want to make the right call,” said Smith.
The Ohio Department of Education requires students in all-day kindergarten through 6th grade to have 910 hours in the school year. For grades 7th through 12th, the requirement is 1001 hours. For several districts, including Madison Local Schools, counting hours instead of days has helped.
“In districts like ours that are right up on the lake where you could have lake effect snow that impacts, absolutely,” Smith said.
“These are the winters I remember as a kid. The ground was covered in January,” said Smith.
She said it has not been an ordinary winter, canceling school for five days in December usually doesn’t happen.
But she added her sister in Louisiana is having snow, too, so this is not a typical winter for many.