CCS has cushion even with several snow days

    Snow continues to be a popular topic of conversation as mounds of the white stuff seem to have been here forever.
    After four cancelled school days and a late start, administrators at Chase County Schools aren’t worried yet on meeting state attendance requirements.
    It used to be that the Nebraska Department of Education set a specific number of days that schools had to be in session in a given school year.
    Now the state doesn’t count days, CCS Supt. Adam Lambert noted, but rather instructional hours.
    Those hours are different for K-8 and 9-12 students.
    For high school, students need to have 1,080 instructional hours in a completed school year and, in K-8, the requirement is 1,032 instructional hours, he said.
    Taking away lunch time and minutes between classes, Lambert said he calculates a full day of school as 6.5 hours.
    The 2022-23 school calendar shows students in school 173 days. At 6.5 hours nearly every day, that adds up to well above the state requirement.
    “We are doing fine as we currently sit. If we need to make some up, we will explore those options, but as of right now we are doing good,” he said.
    With several months of winter left, it’s only a guessing game on that.
    Imperial has already received over 19 inches of snow just in January.
    Snow remains piled in a lot of areas, and temperatures have not been above freezing for weeks, except for a day here and there.
    But, warmer weather is on its way, with above freezing temperatures beginning Wednesday and 30s and 40s forecast well into next week.
    School officials are now wondering if they’ll need to make adjustments to transportation again when county roads muddy up as the snow melts.
    Lambert said he’ll be watching the conditions in the coming days and weeks.
    CCS has already used its snow routes for busses several days when parents have to bring their children to designated check points along the highways.
    “As it starts to melt, we’re probably going to have to stay on the highways again,” he said.
    “We look at that daily. The snow has taken a real toll on the county roads,” he said.