Courtesy photo Rep. Ken Borton, R-Gaylord, and Katy Xenakis-Makowski, superintendent of Johannesburg-Lewiston Area Schools.

LANSING – This academic year, school districts in the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan experienced severe winter weather, which forced many administrators to close far more often than expected.

For example, the superintendent of Johannesburg-Lewiston Area Schools in Otsego County, Katy Xenakis-Makowski, said she closed the high school 14 days due to bad weather this school year.

“For us this year, it was snow and ice,” she said.

Together with the facility director, Xenakis-Makowski makes the call on whether to cancel due to weather conditions.

While there aren’t specific criteria to follow, she said they decide to close “when we feel that it’s not safe enough for students and staff to be on the road.”

On some days, her facility director goes out at 3 a.m. to check conditions “He drives all our routes on questionable days to check and see if they’re safe,” Xenakis-Makowski said.

“So really, it comes down to safety,” she said.

With 14 days missed, the school exceeded the current allowance of closure days per school year, and must make up the additional days in the summer.

“We have nine forgiven and we have five to make up,” Xenakis-Makowski said.

Under Michigan law, public schools must meet both a minimum of 180 days of instruction and a minimum of 1,098 instructional hours per school year.

Ken Coleman, a communications specialist for the Department of Education, said districts are typically allowed to count up to six days (or equivalent hours) of canceled instruction as “forgiven” due to circumstances beyond their control without department approval.

“Up to an additional three days may be requested once a district has exhausted the first six,” he said.

Common qualifying reasons include severe weather, health or safety emergencies and utility failures like the loss of heat and electricity, Coleman said.

While three additional days are typically approved, Xenakis-Makowski said, “anything beyond nine, you’re making up.”

Her high school is scheduled to add five days after the last regular day of the school calendar because it has to make them up before the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

“Schools either have to make up the days by adding them on or take a loss of state aid for the days they weren’t in session,” she said. One day would cost her district roughly $37,777.

With making up days, “the problem is that some students, teachers and families have summer commitments,” she said, plus schools have construction schedules and short time frames to get the work completed.

Because of that, a bill introduced by Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River, proposes allowing local school boards to waive up to 15 closure days caused by circumstances beyond the control of school officials.

“While U.P. residents are accustomed to tough weather, no one could have expected the severity of the storms we’ve faced over the last year,” Prestin said in a press release.

“In just the past few months, schools have been forced to shut down for extended periods because of historic blizzards, extreme cold, flooding and other extreme conditions,” he added.

Xenakis-Makowski said that based on the data she received from districts across Northern Michigan and the U.P., many canceled 10 or more days due to weather, with some as high as 18 and 20.

“Schools had snow higher than their roof lines,” she said.

“It took days to shovel the cement-like snow in some of our areas because we received 8 to 12 inches of snow and then had ice fall on top of it, so traditional plow trucks couldn’t even move it,” she said.

Prestin said teachers and students work hard to stay caught up and not let extreme weather get in the way, adding, “Forgiving these additional days is common sense after the year we’ve had.”

Under his bill, schools would be eligible for forgiveness if they are in a county that is covered by a state of emergency declared by the governor or are in Alger, Baraga, Cheboygan, Chippewa, Dickinson, Iron, Luce, Mackinac, Marquette, Menominee, Montmorency and Schoolcraft counties.

Donald Wotruba, the Michigan Association of School Boards’ executive director, said, “The counties listed were definitely hit hard by that last winter storm and lost a number of days of instruction.”

While the association doesn’t have a position on the bill yet, he noted that there are two sides of the debate when it comes to closure days.

“They are really hard to make up by adding days,” he said.

“On one hand, there is a need because of that difficulty,” Wotruba said. “But others would say the kids in total lost a lot of classroom time, and by not making up the days, they lose learning opportunities when people also are talking about lower test scores statewide,” he said.

The Michigan Education Association also doesn’t have a position on Prestin’s bill.

The union’s communications consultant, Thomas Morgan, said the bill is one of a number of pending proposals that try to address the issue through legislation.

“We are working with lawmakers from both parties, as well as other educators and administrators, to find a solution for folks in these impacted communities so that, hopefully, they can get out of school on time,” he said.

Morgan also said this is not the first school year that the situation happened.

“Once every few years, if there’s been a particularly bad winter, especially up north, the Legislature will come together to pass a solution that helps prevent those days and grants a waiver back, so that folks up north can get some kind of relief from the storms that come periodically,” he said.

Xenakis-Makowski, who said “there is a need for the bill,” would like to see a longer-term outlook and discussion of the issue.

“The weather impacts that Northern Michigan has faced over the past five years have been significantly more dramatic than those we faced prior to 2020,” she said.

But, for now, she needs to wait and see if the bill passes.

“Theoretically, we’d want to know now because we’ve already put out communication to our parents,” she said. “I think if we know in the next couple of weeks, people can make some adjustments.”

Prestin’s bill was referred to the Government Operations Committee.

Co-sponsors are Reps. Karl Bohnak, R-Deerton, Cam Cavitt, R-Cheboygan, Ken Borton, R-Gaylord, Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock.