In the past few weeks, Spring Lake Public Schools has had many snow days. After Tuesday’s snow day, the district has exceeded the six snow day limit allowed by the state.
Superintendent Dennis Furton decides on a snow day by having the bus drivers go out and test the roads at 4 a.m., and then talks to the other superintendents in the area to see what they are planning to do. All snow days will be called by 6:30 a.m. on the day of. However, ideally, they are called the night before.
The state allows six snow days per year, and if a school exceeds this limit, it can apply for a state waiver that grants an additional three days. However, once they exceed the extra three days, they will have to make up the rest at the end of the school year in June.
Grand Haven and many other schools around Spring Lake have applied for the state waiver after a series of winter storms that have brought historic lake effect snow, below-zero temperatures, and dangerous wind chills. Spring Lake will apply for the waiver later in the winter.
The week of January 19-23 was Marther Luther King Jr. Day, and Spring Lake had a scheduled Friday off for conferences. However, students did not get into the building at all that week due to the weather. This was the same week that they had off due to snow days as last year. Spring Lake also had two snow days before Christmas break on December 2 and 10.
The week started with lots of snow, and then turned into a really cold cold front that caused the schools to close. Spring Lake got 6-8 inches for multiple days in a row for a total of 24-30 inches. It experienced the lowest temperatures in 32 years, with feels-like temperatures dropping below minus 30 and actual temperatures getting down to minus 4.
While Spring Lake was off Friday the 23rd, all of the schools in West Michigan had a snow day due to the dangerous wind chills that could cause frostbite in minutes. In Michigan, if the temperature feels like temperatures drop below -20, schools are required to cancel school.
The weather doesn’t seem to be slowing down, and Spring Lake is still experiencing cold temperatures and snowfall, according to AccuWeather, which should continue into the end of March.
This has led the school to decide on opening up the option of calling two-hour delayed starts to prevent having to add days to the end of the school year in June. If a delayed start is called, high school would start at 9:40 and end at the same time as a regular day.
