(NEWS CENTER Maine) -- Some say 'hooray' for snow days. Others fear, at this point, summer vacation will never get here. From the October wind storm to the cold snap in January, and now back-to-back storms, school officials statewide are now trying to figure out how to handle the high amount of cancellations this year.
“As it happens students are saying ‘call a snow day! Call a snow day,’" says Ken Kunin, Superintendent of South Portland Schools. "Then they start to realize; I don’t really want to be going that late in June.”
Superintendent Kunin, says his district builds snow days into the school calendar every year.
“We anticipate having five."
As of Wednesday, South Portland students and teachers have had seven so far this school year.
“We schedule 176 days so we can go back to the board and ask to drop down to the state minimum of 175 so with that right now we’d be ending on June 20th.”
Students in Bangor will also be in class until June 20th.
Superintendent Betsy Webb of the Bangor School Department says her district has had eight storm days but was able to slide two what they call “teacher in-service days” to the end of the year, buying back two days for students.
In Bethel, the total stands at eleven cancelations. Students there will be going to class an extra hour every day for 25 days, the maximum the state allows. According to the Maine Department of Education, five extended days may count for one make-up day.
In Lewiston, weather conditions forced students and teachers to stay home for nine days. The most Superintendent Bill Webster says he has seen in his twelve years with the district. Next week, he’ll propose a plan to the school board to add an hour to certain school days, in the event of even more snow days.
Back in South Portland, school officials are hopeful next week’s forecast will change.
“We’re really doing the rain dances hoping for that, but we’ll just have to deal with that if it comes," says Superintendent Kunin. "We’ll have to look at other options which would include extending some days by an hour, looking at a Saturday, and looking at an early release day in May.”
Of the four school district officials NEWS CENTER Maine spoke with Wednesday, none mentioned a possibility of dipping into April vacation.