PEA RIDGE — The winter storms last week caused cancellation of classes and gave students a third week of winter vacation.

Pea Ridge schools were closed for an entire extra week last week, Jan. 4-8, at the intended time of return from winter break.

Pea Ridge School District counts a full day of school as six hours of instruction. The district must turn in 178 full days of attendance by the end of the school year to the State of Arkansas. They are allowed five days for absences due to weather or other circumstances without make up.

Any more days missed this year will be required to be made up at the end of the year.

Superintendent Mike Van Dyke is ultimately responsible for canceling school.

“I always talk to my transportation director, Cameron McNabb, and we’ll drive the roads ... We got out yesterday and felt like we could get most students in and all the staff,” Van Dyke said, adding the east side of the district still had roads that might have proved treacherous to buses.

Sunday an e-mail was sent toparents via the district’s alert system to notify families of a limited bus service Monday, he said. Instead of having the children miss another day,McNabb set up meeting places to get children on buses and to school.

“It worked pretty good, I had principals working last nightto get the word out,” Van Dyke said.

As far as catching up on aBY CASSI LAPP Staff writer [email protected]week’s worth of learning, Van Dyke and curriculum coordinator Bonnie Fullmer say they are on track.

“We lost a week of instruction until (standardized) testing. That’s our World Series, our Super Bowl. We are constantly measuring progress and offer help sessions,” Van Dyke said.

With the exception of 11th grade literacy in March, standardized testing begins in April.

“We already completed semester tests,” Fullmer said, adding it was a natural break and transition time so it was the best time to miss days if they had to.

According to Van Dyke, some schools, including Prairie Grove, had notconducted semester testing yet at the time of the winter shut down.

“Our first and second quarters are a little bit shorter than the third and fourth,” Fullmer said. She said some schools work really hard to make the quarters exactly equal in days, hence the late testing.

Spring break is scheduled for March 22-26 and the last day of school is set for May 24.

Van Dyke said any required make-up days will not affect graduating seniors, since graduation is confirmed at Barnhill Arena for May 22.

On Monday, Van Dyke said despite some busted pipes in the high school and middle school, the first day back was going smoothly.

News, Pages 1 on 01/13/2010