School closings caused by severe weather during the past week have depleted the Carter County Schools’ “built-in” snow days; the system is now having to look at ways to make up days.

“Our calendar is built around a 180 day school year,” Director of Schools Kevin Ward said, adding state and federal regulations mandate how many days schools must be open. “We’ve got 10 snow days built into our calendar.”

Those days have now all been used for the year, he said. “Thursday was our 10th day.”

Because the school system is now out of snow days, Ward said he and other system administrators will have to present a plan to make up additional days to the Board of Education for their approval.

The first place the school system can look to make up those days is in school breaks, and school officials will look first at their students’ Spring Break, currently scheduled for March 30 through April 3.

“As of Friday, we are tapping into our Spring Break Days,” Ward said. “There are five of those and they probably won’t last long based on how the weather is going.” Current forecasts from the National Weather Service office in Morristown are predicting additional snowfall in the early part of this week.

If all five days of the scheduled Spring Break are absorbed, Ward said the system had one more option for making up days. “The second scenario would be we would have to extend the end of the school year,” he said.

This past week, writing assessments were on the schedule for students in the 4th, 7th and 10th grades. Despite the weather cancellations, Ward said, to his knowledge, none of the assessments were impacted because schools had been working to get those completed early.

“Right now, on the writing assessment, we are in pretty good shape,” he said. “All of the schools have been able to get their assessments in.”

While school cancellations can lead to problems with adjusting calendars or shifting test dates, Ward said those things come second to making sure all of the students and staff are safe.

During this past week’s snow and ice, the system closed its administrative office for a couple of days, and on days they were open, staff members were given leeway on working.

“I’ve told my staff if you can’t make it safely then stay home,” Ward said.

While the forecast ahead may show more snow and freezing temperatures, Ward said he is trying to remain positive.

“I’m ready for Spring. I’m thinking Spring, like I’m sure many other people are,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe if we think it hard enough, it will come.”