Students Skipping Holidays Bonner County Schools Making Up Time Lost To Snow-Damaged Roofs

In a town that’s struggled with a racist reputation, it may not be too popular to work on Martin Luther King Day, but the Bonner County School District has little choice.

Students and teachers already have missed 13 days of school. Heavy snow collapsed roofs and damaged several buildings, forcing school to be canceled. Counting Christmas vacation, the district was closed for nearly a month.

To help make up those days, the school board decided to hold classes on Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day and cancel two teacher in-service days. Regular school days also were extended by 15 minutes to give students more class time.

“I haven’t heard too much griping about the holidays. I know the school board feels as strongly as I do that we need to make up some time,” said Superintendent Max Harrell.

“There are going to be things teachers are still not able to cover 100 percent and this is going to have an impact.”

The district has asked the state to forgive five days of school students missed before Christmas. The state most likely will honor that request so the district does not lose any state funding. Even if the days are forgiven, Harrell said it’s important to make up as many as possible so students are not denied a quality education.

“It’s arguable whether we can actually make up this time in terms of continuity to the education process. What we can do is give additional time for teachers to work with students.”

Seniors at the high schools need the makeup days to ensure they have enough credit hours to graduate and that their credits are accepted when applying to colleges. Sandpoint High School students will not be back in class until Monday. The rest of the district was back in session Thursday. The high school still was being repaired after the auditorium roof caved in, damaging parts of the cafeteria and several classrooms.

So far the district has kept its spring break schedule intact and does not plan to add days onto the end of the school year. That could change if there is more snow or the notoriously bad spring thaw in Bonner County creates impassable roads.

“I’m not convinced the days we have missed are the only days we are going to be out of school,” Harrell said. “We have an awful lot of winter left, not to mention the spring thaw and mud season.”

The schedule the school board has agreed on will allow students and teachers to make up 10 days.

“I think we came through this much better than we thought we would a week and a half ago,” Harrell said.

Most of the district’s students will not be displaced while repairs are made. Only students at Farmin Elementary will be forced to use portable classrooms.

The damage to all school buildings is estimated at $1 million. Insurance and federal emergency funds will cover costs for most of the repairs. The district’s budget will be tapped for several hundred thousand dollars, Harrell said, to pay for snow removal.

, DataTimes