MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Monongalia County Schools has exhausted the balance of their Snow Days for the 2024-25 school year and continue to watch winter weather forecasts that provide no relief.
Superintendent Eddie Campbell said transporting about 12,000 students to and from school buildings throughout the county requires a different set of considerations than parents experienced when they were in school.
“A lot of us who have been around awhile look back to when we were kids and we hear it all the time,” Campbell said. “We went to school when there was six inches of snow and the buses ran, but it’s a different time and not the same when we were kids.”
The state Department of Education provides each district with five days to cancel classes referred to as Snow Days and five days that can be Arctic Academy days, or non-instructional days.
“We are minus one on Snow Days. Meaning we’ll have to look at our calendar and find a makeup day because today was out sixth,” Campbell said. “And we have three Arctic Academy Days to use at our discretion.”
Professional development days are planned as the initial schedule is completed for the year. Campbell said some of those days can be repurposed to make those instructional days up before they consider extending the school year.
“It’s originally not considered part of their 180 day instructional year,” Campbell said. ” So, we can convert that into an instructional day and it meets all the requirements that the state places on us for our calendar.”
Campbell said his first and most important obligation when evaluating weather conditions is to the safety of students, families, teachers, and service workers.
“We deal with it as it comes, we can’t control Mother Nature,” Campbell said. ” We’ll continue to put our kids’ safety at the forefront and we’ll get those instructional days made up for sure.”
The MetroNews Accuweather forecast shows the possibility of accumulating snow Thursday and Thursday evening before temperatures rebound into the 20’s by Sunday with a chance of snow. The low temperature Sunday is currently forecast to be 7 degrees and high temperatures next week are expected to be in the teens with lows in the single digits.