The school board recently passed a new policy allowing for the consideration of late starts and early dismissals due to inclement weather. As the board prioritizes student’s safety over everything, they hope that this new policy will be beneficial to the safety of students. There’s still confusion surrounding this change , so what’s this new policy about?

“A late start would allow for time for the roads to be cleared before students head to school,” secretary of the school board Amy Parks said. “Additionally, an early out would hopefully allow high school drivers to get home safely before weather conditions make roads treacherous.”

Secretary Parks is a mother to children in the district, which provides another perspective to the new change.

“As a parent in the district I am fine with this new policy.  I am fortunate that my children are older, can be left home alone or can transport themselves if need be.  I realize this policy will be an adjustment for families with younger children, but until the policy is actually used we have no real idea of how this will affect those families,” Secretary Parks said.  

“The administration chose to re-adopt this policy (the district has used a half day snow day policy before) to afford themselves an additional option for days where there may be inclement weather,” Secretary Parks said.  “For high school drivers I would hope this would be a positive impact.”

Principal Mark Kalvoda believes that the new policy will help prevent days where administration regrets having a snow day. 

“There have been some days where we could have been in school if we had just started at 10, and there have been some days where we could have started school and ended early, because the weather is fickle like that, especially in Nebraska,” said Principal Kalvoda. 

The student body’s opinion is mixed on the policy, as some students, like sophomore Alexis Wendt, see it as a beneficial.

“I’m a new driver so if this means there’s a bigger chance of not having to drive in snow and ice, I think it’s worth it,.” Wendt said.  

Other students have a few concerns over the new policy. 

“I think it’s nice that it means we don’t have to drive in terrible weather, but I feel like the new policy means there’ll be less snow days.” sophomore Lindsey Johnson said.

Both Kalvoda and Parks doubt this will be an issue. 

“I don’t think we’ll overuse it. I think when in doubt, we’ll still have a snow day,” said Kalvoda, “I think the one that’s most likely to occur is a late start, as we could call just a late start, or it may change from late start to full day off.”