By Chelsea Titus
Round Table reporter

Frederick County Public Schools has announced changes to the 2009-10 school calendar. The changes were caused due to weather-related closings from the last two weeks.

If schools are closed for more than five days due to inclement weather or other emergencies, according to school policies, the students must make up the lost time by attending days previously scheduled for school to be closed.

President’s Day would have been the first day to be made up, but because of the short notice, schools remained closed.

As a result, FCPS announced that March 1 and 2 would become full days instead of half days. The parent-teacher conferences that were scheduled have been canceled.

Because the state already counted the above as full days, those changes do not count toward snow make-up days.

March 31 and April 1 will be replaced as two of the lost days because of the weather. These days were part of the students’ spring break.

As of February 25, FCPS has had eleven snow days.

The Board of Education anticipates a waiver of the state-mandated 180-day school year.  Then FCPS will end the year on June 11 for students and the 14 for teachers, according to fcps.org.

What people are saying:

“I understand that it’s hard for all classes, especially AP, to lose a handful of days, but these added days are unnecessary. We have never gotten this much snow since the early 1900’s; so the snow should be an exception. The state should count those extra days as a state emergency and not add on.” – MHS junior Katie Tartaglia

“I do not think that it’s fair for FCPS to take away days from our spring break. My family has already planned a vacation, which I will now have to miss school for. The county should excuse the snow days and allow the original school schedule.” – MHS senior Christine Lopez