Issaquah School District Says No Waiver for Snow Days

The Issaquah School District has announced that despite the governor’s declaration of a state of emergency, it does not at this point, plan to seek a waiver for the missed days (if there are more snow days later, that could change). In a news release Monday morning, the district said: "We strongly believe in at least 180 school days for students, and these have already been built into the school-year calendar. However, seniors are now one-day short of their mandated 175 school days, and we will likely seek a one-day waiver to meet our graduation date."

The Lake Washington School District announced that due to the snow days, the end of semester for junior high and high schools has been changed from January 27 to February 3.

As to the matter of making up the snow days, however, it is undecided as yet, said district spokesperson Kathryn Reith.

"Generally we add them to the end of the school year, but that decision has not yet been made," Reith said.

Reith said that the district is in part waiting to see if even more days might be lost to snow.

Given that the school year was already scheduled to end fairly late on June 22, Reith said the district is concerned about going even later into the summer and is considering adding makeup days throughout the remainder of the year as opposed to tacking them onto the end.

"There are other options we could do," Reith said.

Washington schools are legally required to have 180 days of school and 1,000 hours of instruction. Three days were lost to last week's snow storm in LWSD, and four in Issaquah School District.

Reith said that a decision will be made sometime between the end of January or the middle of February.