Warmer weather, spring sports and final exams all point toward the fact that the end of the school year is near. At the beginning of the winter, everyone commented on how mild the weather had been up to that point. However, near the end of winter when the 12+ inches of snow fell, none of us felt we just had a mild winter. The snow days this year were unusual as they came near the end of the winter once we had already bypassed a couple of our potential make-up days. This same problem occurred throughout the state. The Department of Education issued an emergency make-up day policy that requires schools to make-up the first 4 days and then one day for every three days missed thereafter. Since we missed seven days we will need to make up 5 school days. We have already made up one day on Presidents’ Day. The other four days will be added onto the end of the school year. The last day for grades K-11 will be Thursday, May 29^th , and the last day for seniors will be Wednesday, May 28^th. The graduation ceremony will stay as planned on Sunday, May 25^th. Seniors will receive their actual diplomas after they have met all requirements on Wednesday, May 28^th. If you have any questions about the school calendar, you can contact me or the building principals.

Beginning next year, we have put in place a system to be able to call all parents in case of an emergency. We are adding a program to our system that will allow automatic phone calls to be made to parents. Our initial plan is to use it for emergencies and contacting parents in the event of school dismissals or even school cancellations. Once we activate the system we can make calls to every home in the district within minutes. As we develop the system, we hope to use it for attendance issues as well as reminders of events that are occurring at your child’s school. We are very anxious to try the new system out and to get feedback from parents. Next year when a snow day occurs not only will it be on the TV, radio and the website, but you should receive a personal phone call telling you that school is cancelled.

If you have any questions, please contact me a spatz@risingsun.k12.in.us