gchildress@heraldsun.com; 419-6645
CHAPEL HILL -- The fun ends today for Chatham and Orange County schools students.
After a three-day break, following a weekend winter storm that dumped several inches of snow on roads, making many of them impassable, both school districts reopen today under a two-hour delay.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools resumed Wednesday, also under a under a two-hour delay. As of Wednesday night, schools officials planned to open on schedule today. If a two-hour delay was deemed necessary, parents were to be notified by 6:15 this morning.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro students must make up two missed days. Fortunately for them, inclement weather dates are built into the school calendar. The scheduled make-up day for Feb. 1 is Feb. 22, and the scheduled make-up day for Feb. 2 is April 5, which is Easter Monday.
Chatham and Orange county officials had not finalized plans for make-up days late Wednesday.
"We won't have those until tomorrow afternoon," said Michael Gilbert, spokesman for Orange County Schools.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro spokeswoman Stephanie Knott said the scheduled make-up days mean the school district won't have to dip into its spring break -- March 31 to April 2, or attend Saturday classes unless students are forced to miss at least two more days of school.
"That's the good news," Knott said. "We have not gone into losing spring break."
If students miss one more day, the scheduled make-up day would be Memorial Day, but after that, the school district would begin taking a look at the spring break schedule or holding Saturday classes.
"We can miss one more day before we start cutting into spring break," Knott said.
The return to classes Wednesday went smoothly, she said, though three neighborhoods in the northern part of town -- Stoneridge, Sedgefield and Creekwood -- had limited or no bus service because of hazardous road conditions.
"We asked parents to make provision to transport their kids to schools," Knott said.
