The Wright City R-II School Board has set a hard date for the end of the school year and approved paying staff for up to three days of work lost due to severe weather.

The last day of school for students in the Wright City district will remain unchanged at May 27, despite several days lost due to snow and ice. Board members voted unanimously on the final date during their regular public meeting Feb. 20.

Plans for how the district would address make-up days had been somewhat ambiguous after the R-II district lost eight days of classes to winter weather starting in November. There have been so many snow days that state-level requirements to make up further lost days are relaxed, said R-II Superintendent Dr. David Buck.

Buck told board members that even with the days lost to bad weather, the district will easily meet state-mandated educational hours. Rather than extending the school year past snow days that were already built into the end of the year, Buck recommended simply accepting the loss of some class days.

With the current number of snow days, that would mean the Wright City district has three fewer education days this year.

“If we go to May 27 with the number of days we’ve missed, that would be 168 student days,” Buck said, which would be close to 1,100 hours of classes. “The state average is way below that, and the state minimum is 1,044.”

School board member Erin Williams questioned if losing three days would affect students’ education. 

“Are we able to teach everything we said we were going to teach?” Williams asked. “Is there a chunk of stuff that we’re going to leave out?

Buck’s answer was pragmatic: There’s always more students could be learning and never enough time. Three days won’t make a difference to that, Buck said. He expressed confidence that teachers could compress their lesson plans by three days.

But taking three days out of the year opened the question of whether non-salary staff should be paid for the lost days. Buck asked the school board to approve paying staff members for the three days being lost.

Buck said he plans to have one staff-only work day at the schools, and would like to simply pay the two additional days with no work requirements.

“I don’t think I have enough work for all those people to do three days after school lets out,” Buck commented. 

If there are any more snow days this year, Buck recommended capping the number of paid non-work days at three for support staff who wouldn’t be working.

Board members agreed unanimously with Buck’s proposal, but ruled that support staff should be able to use personal time to get paid for the fourth or further day lost due to weather.

“We have to treat our employees right. I don’t think there’s a question here,” said board member Heidi Halleman

The school board voted 7-0 to keep the final day of school on May 27 and pay staff members for three snow days that won’t be made up in the year. The decision doesn’t cost the district any additional money, as staff payments for 171 days had already been budgeted.

Buck said if the board had decided not to pay staff for days they don’t work, it might have reduced the budget by roughly $15,000.