By Taylor J. Hale
Reporter

STEVENS POINT — Stevens Point School District officials met on Tuesday night at the Special School Board Meeting to discuss school calendar revisions.

The district has experienced a whopping seven cancellations since the start of winter, and further amendments are now being made to meet the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) time compliance standards.

“This has just been an unbelievable winter,” said District Superintendent Craig Gerlach. “We had record-breaking amounts of snow in February across the state.”

Stevens Point Area Senior High (SPASH) and other district secondary schools will have to make up time for the abundance of missed days. Any future weather-related cancellations will result in days being added on to the semester, starting with an additional day on June 10, and so on for each day missed.

To manage the excess cancellations, SPASH students will stay an additional 3 minutes each school day, starting Mar. 7 through the estimated last day of the semester, June 7, extending classes to 2:59 p.m.

Other area secondary schools will have to attend classes on June 7. SPASH is the only school at this time that is adding minutes to scheduled curricula. Regional elementary schools are not affected by these calendar changes.

Board members also asked for permission to make calendar adjustments without the need for approval at formal board meetings to combat future snowfall cancellation issues. This authority ‘would allow for more flexibility when accommodating missed days. The request was unanimously approved.

This special meeting closely followed a similar district assemblage earlier this winter to address missed school days. Officials amended Feb. 22 and April 22 to “student attendance days” at the last meeting. Staff hopes that June 7 will be the final day of the semester, but severe weather may still affect scheduling.

Contact Taylor J. Hale at [email protected] with Portage County news and information.