GRAYSON COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) – Bad weather and poor road conditions caused Grayson County Public Schools to close in-person learning for the first nine days following the winter break. Schools were already closed for two weeks in October following Hurricane Helene, so it would seem Grayson County used up all its snow days, but that is not the case.
In order to qualify for a full school year in Virginia, each school must either have 180 teaching days or 990 teaching hours. Instead of building in the extra days, Grayson County school days are longer.
“Our calendar builds in an extra hour into the schedule, which helps us quite a bit at the end,” Grayson County public schools superintendent Kelly Wilmore said. “We do build in a few days in with it because we have to, but ours is mainly, and we’ve done this for years, is built in with the extra hours.”
The calendar also has built-in virtual school days, and the first four were used last week.
Students return to school in-person Thursday on a two-hour delay, but Wilmore said there could be more bad weather days still to come this winter.
“You just take it a day at a time, that’s all you can do, and we’ll just keep going from there,” he said. “It’s wintertime In Grayson County; it’s just part of the job.”
Having to keep closing school is something Wilmore does not feel pressured by.
“If I worry about what people think about me, I don’t need to be in this job,” he said. “My job is to keep people safe, and if we ever have a situation where a bus is overturned, I have to be the one over there that’s answering those parents.”
Wilmore said it’s likely the school year gets extended at least a week at the end of the year, and it could be longer depending on how much more winter weather the county gets.