SJSD provides snow day totals, last day of school remains the same
The St. Joseph School District has used its fair share of AMI and snow days throughout the last few weeks.
Students in the District haven’t attended in-person classes since last Tuesday, Feb. 11.
SJSD was able to begin the school year with five Alternative Method of Instruction Days, however, as of Thursday, Feb. 20, they are have none.
SJSD Superintendent, Dr. Gabe Edgar said the AMI day totals would be two and a half days, however, due to Edison and Eugene Field elementary schools suffering from heat issues in early January, the District was forced to use days in it’s AMI bank.
The District also had three built-in Snow Days at the beginning of the school year, now they have one day left.
Although the end of winter is inching closer, Edgar said the District is trying to prepare for anything coming its way.
“We’ll have a discussion with the board as to what we want to do if we have some weather coming in the future,” said Edgar.
After utilizing another AMI day on Thursday, Feb. 20, Edgar hopes kids can get back to school.
“I’m hoping we can at least get to school on Friday of this week,” said Edgar.
As of now, SJSD is set up for students to attend school for 169 days- or 1,044 hours, out of the school year.
Although the District has both AMI and snow days built into it’s school year, Edgar said choosing between the two has its pros and cons.
“It presents a challenge and we just tried to filter in and our as we go,” said Edgar.
In order to ensure support staff gets paid, Edgar said not exhausting one option over the other is the best move for the District.
“I don’t want people being docked that make the lowest amount of money in the school district, and so I try to protect them when I make that decision,” said Edgar. “That might be philosophical, but that’s the reason why the District closed in some of those situations and not AMI.”
Support staff gets paid for the three snow days offered during the school year, but Edgar said they’ve certainly gone by fast.
SJSD schools are still expected to dismiss for summer by Tuesday, May 20.
Edgar said the Board of Education will decide what direction to go in if the District’s remaining snow day end up being exhausted as well.
