The Greenwood School District will be extending school hours next week, and the Leflore County School District will be tacking days onto the end of the year to make up for four February snow days.
The Leflore County School District will add a total of four days to its school calendar, holding classes this coming Monday and on the May 25 Memorial Day holiday. Two additional days, May 27 and 28, will be added to the end of the school year.
Leflore County Deputy Superintendent Byron Haynes said that graduation ceremonies for Leflore County and Amanda Elzy high schools are being rescheduled. Seniors at the high schools are now tentatively scheduled to receive their diplomas on May 27. Haynes said Leflore County High School’s graduation ceremony is currently scheduled for 10 a.m., with Elzy to follow at 1:30 p.m.
The Greenwood School District will be extending school for four days next week but otherwise won’t be adjusting its schedule as a result of the snow closures.
In a letter to district parents Thursday, Superintendent Montrell Greene wrote that students and staff will still receive Easter Monday off but that classes will be extended by an hour and a half on Tuesday through Friday, meaning that schools won’t dismiss students until 4:30 p.m. on those days.
Greenwood teachers will be working three additional days into the summer for professional development, but district students will not have any days of class time added onto the end of the school year, said Margaret Dean, director of communications for the district.
The Mississippi Department of Education, in a memorandum to districts issued last week, said that most districts had to make up the first four days missed with full school days. Any additional days — such as Carroll County’s fifth snow day — could be made up by lengthening the end of existing days.
The Greenwood district, however, was granted relief from those requirements by the Department of Education because the district’s school board policy grants the superintendent the authority to decide whether to make up missed days.
In Carroll County, schools were in session for an extra 82.5 minutes this week and will be holding an extra four days of classes — May 21 and May 26-28 — at the end of the school year.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
