Snow Days

Sam Capece

This year in Minnesota the snow has been piling and the state has seen record breaking low temperatures, especially for Orono High School. Orono has had numerous cancellations and delays due to snow, cold, and even ice. Many students have questions concerning making up school and how Orono will proceed if more school days continue to be cancelled.

“The snow days have impacted schedules. There are some classes that are behind and have had to cut out lessons. It also impacted athletics and activities as they had to do rescheduling” Principal Dr. Amy Steiner said.

Many sports teams like hockey and basketball have had to move forward despite less practices and missed games. Missed games had to be rescheduled and teams had to fit extra practices in. Schools can have up to five days of online classes due to bad weather according to reviser.mn.gov.

“Other schools do online school during snow days, which allows them to count the day as a school day, so they avoid the problem of having to make up days later in the year. It is very beneficial to do things this way because if a day is on the line of being a snow day, the school could go with the safer route of having a snow day,” junior Devin Hunt said.

Schools have a certain amount of school days they need to have per year. If a school doesn’t complete all the required days they will have to make up days at the end of the year or during holidays and breaks. According to mn2020.org grades 7-12 must have at least 1,020 hours of school and the decision of how to make up school days is up to the individual district. This means that Orono needs at least 145 school days per year. Making up school on saturdays is also an option.

“We do not need to make up any school days at this point” Steiner said.

There are many factors that play a part in declaring a weather emergency. According to mn.gov, government officials see if highways are open, snow plows are working, and if power systems are affected. They also check for dangerous road conditions like ice and dangerously cold weather. Weather emergencies are broadcasted to local radio stations like WCCO and KARE11.

Related Stories

Roads after the first snowfall

Minnesnowta weather causes seasonal depression

Ice Castles: A New Addition To Your Winter Bucket List

MN must-do winter activities

“Snow, ice, and cold are all the things that cause snow days. The decisions are made by the superintendent. She checks the weather and talks with other superintendents. She also talks with transportation. One day the bus company said that they needed a late start, since they are the ones putting the busses out there and they know how the roads are. They try to call the snow days and delays as early as possible. It will only be later if we don’t know. It’s not as bad at the highschool level but with little kids we want to give families as much time as possible.” Steiner said.

This year people living in Minnesota and surrounding states have experienced dangerously cold weather. Schools need to take this into consideration when deciding whether or not to cancel. According to weather.gov if the windchill is -20 or less frostbite can occur in 30 minutes, and when temperatures reach even colder, this can happen much quicker.

“Even if there is no snow outside cold temperatures can still strongly affect the safety of students. For example, if a students car were to break down on the way to school they would be left in the freezing cold. Also, just walking from my parking spot to school, I could barely feel my hands because of the low temps,”  junior Georgia Beutler said.

Orono students have kept safe this winter inside, but with more snow and cold weather to come, there are many more opportunities for dangerous circumstances.

“I think that one thing I always want kids who drive to know is that if we have to close school we do it for a reason, it means it’s not safe. So I want kids to think about that, if we have a day off kids shouldn’t be out. With two hour late starts it doesn’t mean students should leave home two hours later than normal, leave an hour later or an hour and a half later. I want kids to know that it’s serious if we close and that they should be safe and drive slowly and carefully.” Steiner said.