School districts in the Ozarks adding days to the school calendar because of snow

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - The state of Missouri requires 174 days of instruction, and Arkansas requires 178 days of instruction.

Many school districts build snow days into the school calendar to prevent makeup days, but for some, it wasn’t enough.

The Willard School District will add a few days to its school year at the end of May. The district pre-planned additional alternative methods of instruction days, or AMI days.

“We missed four days in total from the end of January to February 1. Three of those days will be made up, May 24, 25, and 26. And then one of those days was a standard snow day not being made up,” Heather Harman-Michael with Willard School District said.

Harrison schools have used seven AMI days and zero snow days, resulting in no makeup days. The catch is schools have to plan for AMI days ahead of time.

The Mountain Grove School District, known for the singing superintendent, is replacing a four-day weekend day with a school day on February 17. Since students missed seven school days, the following five unexpected days off are slotted as virtual learning days.

Branson schools used five snow days and one virtual day. As of now, leaders there do not plan on adding any makeup days.

Springfield Public Schools does not plan on adjusting its school calendar.

“We’ll keep families updated if there’s any need to make adjustments to the calendar, which we don’t expect. We would communicate that to families. And then following spring break, we would confirm the final day of school, which right now is set for May 25,” Stephan Hall with Springfield Public Schools explained.

Cassville Public Schools officials will not decide on makeup days until spring begins.

This could all change with another batch of winter weather. Only time will tell.

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