CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Summer vacation will begin this week for schools in West Virginia.
Braxton and Wayne counties will be the first to end the 2015-2016 school year on Wednesday.
Barbour, Berkeley, Gilmer, Mingo and Ohio will finish Thursday. Brooke, Cabell, Doddridge, Tucker, Upshur and Wood will follow on Friday.
Eddie Campbell, superintendent of Tucker County Schools, said it was rare for them to wrap up the year before June. He said the county is notorious for snow, but the relatively mild winter played a major role in allowing for only nine snow days compared to their average of 17 to 20 snows days per year.
“Folks around here can’t remember the last time Tucker County Schools has gotten out of school in May,” Campbell said. “For us to have a single digit year where we’ve only missed school less than 10 days — it’s probably not going to happen very often for us.”
The county was able to build in extra time throughout the school year to make up for snow days in order to meet the 180 instructional day requirement, Campbell said.
“We shaved a couple days off Thanksgiving break this year. Then we targeted Spring break,” he said. “After we built the snow days in, it ended up just being a three day weekend as opposed to a week long Spring break.”
Tucker County is dismissing school two weeks earlier than last year, Campbell said. The last day of school was June 13, 2015.
Most schools in parts of West Virginia last year remained open until late June 2015 to try and meet the 180 day mark required by state law.
This year, school officials had to construct their own school calendars to allow for any make up days.
Clay County will be the last school system to end the year on June 10.