Snow closed Wake schools in December. Students will pay the price this week.
Most of Wake County’s 160,000 students will pay the price for December’s snow with a full day of school on Friday.
Wake’s traditional-calendar schools will use Friday’s originally scheduled teacher workday to replace the Dec. 10 snow day that canceled classes. Friday is now also a full day of classes instead of a half day for the year-round schools, modified-calendar schools and the two single-gender leadership academies.
Between hurricanes and snow, Wake had an abnormally high number of days lost during the fall semester. Schools have been closed for seven days, with only some of the time being made up.
With so many days missed at high schools, the end of the first semester for traditional-calendar schools was pushed back a day to Friday. This is giving high schools additional time before they start giving final exams for the semester.
Since the majority of Wake’s students attend traditional-calendar schools, the district abandoned its plan to make Friday an early release day for the year-round schools, modified-calendar schools and the leadership academies. Wake doesn’t have enough buses to send those students home 2.5 hours early and still serve the traditional-calendar students.
The decision to convert Friday to a full day allowed Wake to cancel the March 16 makeup day for year-round schools. But some track 1 families complained that their children are being forced to make up time they never missed.
Track 1 was on break when schools were closed in December due to the snow. But they’re getting a full day of classes on Friday even though track 4 students won’t have to make up the one of the days lost in December.
Friday remains a day off for students at Barwell, Fox Road and Walnut Creek elementary schools and Carroll, East Garner and East Millbrook middle schools. Those six schools follow different calendars and are using different makeup days.
Some schools have already had all their scheduled makeup days. Here are the remaining weather makeup days from the September hurricane days and December snow days:
▪ Traditional-Calendar Schools: Jan. 18 and Feb. 19
▪ Year-round schools track 1, 2 and 3: Jan. 18 (now a full day)
▪ Barwell Road Elementary and Walnut Creek Elementary: Jan. 25.
▪ Carroll Middle, East Garner Middle, East Millbrook Middle: Feb. 15 and Feb. 19
▪ Fox Road Elementary: Feb. 15, Feb. 19 and March 8
