Salem-Keizer Snow Days

Co-written by Anna Scherer and Sophia Lee
Due to the copious amounts of snow closures throughout the months of December and January, the Salem-Keizer school district has added on three snows days to the 2016-2017 school year; two that affects grades K-11, and one that affects seniors as well.
All grades, ranging from kindergarten to high school and including the senior class, will have to attend school on Mar. 23. Previously, this was a conference day, lengthening Spring Break. The senior class will not, however, have to attend school on June 15 and June 16. Due to the sudden addition of days, the original final testing dates will be rescheduled.
Portland schools have endured the highest number of closures, resulting in a total of nine to ten. Several districts went back to school today, but only after a two hour delay.
This year has been one of the coldest on record. The National Weather Service tweeted at 5:13 a.m. that “Not only was it the coldest first 6 days to a year since 1979 at PDX, it was also the coldest first 17 days to start a year since 1979.”
In result of the surplus of snow that has affected students from attending school, many students have expressed dislike for the added days in June; claiming it to be ineffective and unnecessary to add days to the second semester of school when it was the first semester that took the hit. Although, others are more understanding of the the situation.
“It’s obviously not enjoyable to have extra days added on to the schedule but I’d rather it be that than have somebody get into a crash because they were trying to go to school with icy roads,” Alexandria Clark ‘17 said.
Friday the third began with an icy morning, giving false hope for a snow day to many Salem Keizer students of not having school, but even without the snowy cancellation the ice was not all gone for the commute to school.
“It is, however, ridiculous that some of they days they chose to cancel school weren’t as bad as some of the days that they didn’t cancel. I heard multiple stories of people sliding in their cars on days that we did have school,” Clark said.
After the bulk of people got to school the rain came and the ice gradually left, yet the overall temperature remains at thirty four degrees fahrenheit. The rest of the week, however, forecasts the temperature to rise between forty to fifty degrees fahrenheit.