Public School students hit 12th day of no classes

Nelson County Public Schools students haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since January because of the snowy weather and icy roads that have plagued Nelson County for the past three weeks, making it the longest stretch of days that classes have been canceled for the past seven years.

Feb. 15 was the school system’s official 12th day out since the beginning of the year. During the 2002-03 school year, classes were canceled for a total of 20 days and in the 2003-04 school year, schools were canceled for 14 days.

“This year has been more challenging than usual because of the strength of the storms and the consistent cycle we find ourselves in,” Nelson County Schools Superintendent Roger Collins said. “Unfortunately, the cycle has added to the length of the time we have been out of school.”

Collins said the decision to keep the students out of schools is something that is decided day-to-day based on information from several sources.

Ultimately, the final decision is based on the safe transportation of students to and from the schools, he said.

“This year, and in other years as well, snow and ice linger on mostly gravel roads in Nelson, making it very difficult to have buses on them for sometimes days after a storm,” Collins said.

School bus drivers, many of whom do not live on main roads, can find it difficult to leave their own homes because of road conditions, Collins said, and many of the rural roads only have one travel lane open currently.

“Also, most of our bus turnaround spots have big piles of snow in them, further complicating the situation,” he said.

In a school year in which money already is tight, Collins said the school system already has used up the money budgeted for snow removal.

Each year, the school system budgets less than $5,000 for snow removal, which is done partly by contractors and partly by school staff, Collins said.

By Jan. 1, the school system had spent more than $3,800 for snow removal.

“This year, we used all of our money budgeted for this by mid-January,” Collins said. “So it will cost us a lot more this year. We will have to find the money somewhere to continue to plow as needed.”

The school system plans to have students make up four of the missed days on Feb. 18, Feb. 19, March 8 and June 4.

Collins said more makeup days are being discussed as well and once a decision is reached the information will be communicated to students and parents.