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Blue Jays Mic'd Up
School District of Washington Superintendent Dr. Cassandra Suggs gives updates on happenings around the District including chats with students, staff, and community leaders.
Blue Jays Mic'd Up
Inclement Weather Days, eLearning and eLearning PLUS
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The Kephart Communications podcast is hosted by School District of Washington Superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Kephart. With help from our team in the Washington High School CAPS program, Dr. Kephart and her guests share information ranging from district happenings, current events, and student experiences to keep listeners informed about the School District of Washington. If you are a parent, district employee, or community member this podcast is for you.
This month we are taking over the podcast to interview Dr. Kephart as she shares the ins and outs of snow days! Let’s welcome Dr. Kephart to get the scoop.
The Kephart Communications Podcast is hosted by School District of Washington Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Kepphart. With help from our team in the Washington High School CAPS program, Dr. Kepphart and her guests share information ranging from district happenings, current events, and student experiences to keep listeners informed about the School District of Washington. If you are a parent, district employee, or community member, this podcast is for you. This month we are taking over the podcast to interview Dr. Kephart as she shares the in and outs of snow days. Let's welcome Dr. Kephart to get the scoop.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Taylor, for the introduction and for flipping the script on today's podcast. I look forward to being the one interviewed.
SPEAKER_01Of course, we're very excited to be on the other side of the podcast. So one of our big questions is what does a potential snow day look like for you? Like what time do you wake up?
SPEAKER_02And that's when we begin looking at the weather outside, not just outside of my window. I happen to live in Washington, so I glance there, but then I work with our director of transportation, and he starts to go out on the road and do some traveling of the roads to see if we need to start having conversations about calling school. I actually hop on a Zoom call, no cameras, at 4 15 in the morning with superintendents out of St. Louis. So we collectively look at the weather that we have been provided by the National Weather Service, and then we start to make some decisions collectively who is going to be utilizing an inclement weather day and who is not. There are times that the St. Louis area superintendents or St. Louis school districts have completely different weather than we do. So I am also in contact with our team in Franklin County. We have a Franklin County superintendents group and we are all on a text group. So at the same time that I'm on the Zoom call with superintendents in St. Louis, we are also on a text group with superintendents in Franklin County because it's more typical that those in Franklin County that the weather is similar in Franklin County than it is in the St. Louis area. So it really is some collaborative efforts from a communication standpoint. But then I look at our team and the driving that is occurring again from our director of transportation. And our number one goal is the safety of our students, the safety of our buses, the safety of our parents on the roads that we have. While it's helpful to know what's happening in St. Louis, helpful to know what's happening in Franklin County, I'm much more concerned about the safety of our school district. So when we have 254 square miles of roads, and you think about how many different types of roads we have in the school district of Washington, we have some city roads like in the city of Washington itself, but we also have some rural roads that are very difficult in hills, that are difficult in turns, that when there are slick streets, that is some specific areas that we watch. Some of the streets that we watch happen to be those that we that we border with Union. So the superintendent in Union I talk quite frequently too because he's typically out on the roads too. So it's a lot of collaboration. However, the decision truly comes down to our buses and the safety of students and and our parents.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. So I'm sure that there's a lot of different factors that goes into deciding to when to call a snow day. But what is your number one priority in calling a snow day?
SPEAKER_02I think that is a great question and one I really appreciate being able to share with our listeners too. And hands down, it's the safety of our students, our buses, and our parents. I want to make sure that if we are having school, that we have safe roads to be able to travel on, and if we aren't having school, that it really is due to the safety of the variety of roads that we have in our district. And again, sometimes it can be very difficult because you see what the city of Washington looks like and the roads are clear, but further out in our community, the roads don't look as clear. It is also very difficult because we have to make the decision by five o'clock. So the reason that I get up at 3:30 is that decision really needs to be made by me by that five o'clock mark. That gives us time to be able to share it on the news, share it with our parents, share it with you all, with students. But also it gives our transportation time to not have their employees come in because on cold weather days, on potential snow days, our transportation, our bus drivers, they actually come in earlier to make sure that buses are warm, that everything is good to go for the bus to run well and run safe. So their decision is employees coming in from multiple places, they need to make that decision by 530. So it's an earlier morning because of those decision factors. Looking at 530, and you think about 530 on a winter morning, it's dark. It's still the sun has not come up. It has not been given time. No matter what's on the road, it hasn't been given time to warm from the sun. So we're making some decisions of when buses will be on the road in about an hour or two by 6.30 or by 7 to be able to pick up students. So there's some decisions that come into play. And there are times that by eight, nine o'clock in the morning, we've made a decision to call school, and then the roads are completely clear. And it looks like, why did we make that call? Well, we made that call because that was the safest call to make early in the morning and what what was either anticipated for right around that time that buses are on the road for our elementaries first and then our secondary, our secondary routes in the second part of our route driving for for our um buses.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's a very good point because like now that you like talk about it, we have so much like space like in our school district, like Martha'sville, Augusta. I know some kids live on Augusta Bottoms. Like I did not even realize like that all is part of ours. But switching a little bit, who actually I you might have touched on it a little bit, but like who is the you I'm guessing is like the main person that makes the call, but like who all gets up in the morning with you to make the call?
SPEAKER_02That's another good question. So yes, I am the main one to make that call. And again, I do that in collaboration primarily with first student with our busing and also we're districts around us, but I'm the one that makes that call. However, the phone call that you all as students, those as listeners and parents, the phone call that goes out actually is the voice of our wonderful Craig Von Dehar, which is our the vote the voice of Snow Days. I certainly learned coming new to the school district, that was one of the changes that nobody wanted me to make. I couldn't be the one to make the call. It had to be Craig's voice. So he continues to do that. So I do have a team that gets up with me by since we know we make that call about five o'clock, he is up at that point in time to be the voice of the snow day. And then our administrative assistant, Miss Julie Bell, is up and she's the one that actually contacts all of the radio and TV um notification systems to make sure that that's all getting out there. At the same time, I'm notifying our administrators to make sure that all of our buildings know that we have a snow day. So that is, it really is a team effort at that early in the morning at five o'clock. I will also say that every now and then, depending, I might uh close my eyes for about 45 minutes after that.
SPEAKER_01I would not blame you. I know whenever I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is check Twitter and then I go back to bed.
SPEAKER_02There you go. That is the one area I have I have uh snuck in a few Twitter notes of there might be a phone call coming. So I feel like Craig can make the call, but I can make the hint.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's always what I look for.
SPEAKER_00It's it's always a great day when you receive a call from Craig. Right, right. Great day.
SPEAKER_01So obviously, all students love snow days. It's what they look for in the wintertime. But one of the big questions that I worry about is how many days do we get before we have to make them up?
SPEAKER_02So we in the district have six days that we have specifically built into our calendar to fully count as snow days. That is one of the special, I would say, unique needs that the district wants to make sure that they keep. And that is the importance of a snow day. Going sledding, I have learned down several really good hills we have. I think one is right outside of Knights of Columbus. Is that a good hill to sled down? Yes, or having hot chocolate. Families enjoy having their snow days. So we have six snow days where they are completely utilized as snow days for students and for our teachers. So the change that we do have is after six, what we really try and refer to as inclement weather days as kids, you know of them as snow days, but they really are inclement weather days in the school district. And what we're missing after six days of inclement weather days or snow days, we're missing some really good instruction. And those, you all being high school students, understand that most of our inclement weather days happen second semester. And if both semesters are about equal in days, if you have six, seven, eight, nine, ten missing days in your second semester class, you're missing some really good instruction that those of you that are in AP classes, those of you that are in dual credit classes, you're missing a chunk of learning. So we make sure that that chunk of learning continues for our students after day six. This is a change for this year because after day six of last year, we went directly into a form of virtual learning that we called e-learning days. This year, that change is going to look different for days seven through ten. So days seven, eight, nine, and ten. On those days, it is going to be a continuous, a continuation of learning. However, that learning will give you as students an opportunity to check in with every teacher from 9 to 11. So it's not a class, you won't log into your class, you won't log into Google Classroom except for the needs that you may have to connect with your teacher. So either continued learning, you need help with something, the assignment that was given to you, you need some help with that. So all teachers will be ready to answer student questions from 9 to 11. Then after that, from 11 on, that's when our teachers will continue to have some professional development and some collaboration amongst themselves. If it's day 11 on, we realize that if you have missed 11 days of a semester, that is significant. And we really want that learning to be able to continue for you. So days 11 on is what we are calling e-learning plus, and that will be a normal virtual learning day. So you will actually log in to every class that you would normally have. If you're an elementary student and you had PE that day or you had music that day, you would continue on with your exploratory class. So again, trying to keep as the continuation of learning after days six, but the difference between e-learning, seven to ten, and then eleven plus.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. I didn't realize you guys had that planned all out.
SPEAKER_02We have just communicated that with parents earlier this month, and we will continue that as our days start to click on inclement weather days. We'll remind parents and students of that as well as staff because it is a little bit of a difference and a change. And that really came from some feedback from our parent survey and from our staff and from our student survey.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I feel like in the past years we haven't really had like actual snow days where we would like continue to learn school stuff. So I think that's kind of important.
SPEAKER_02Well, and the importance to that too is we don't want to have to add on to the end of the calendar. That's what in s in several years ago we had to do just because of the the needs that the state had for hours and counts of days. That has changed from a from a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from a Missouri state standpoint. That has changed. So we can do virtual days. You all have computers that we can have that we can do virtual days, and we don't want to have to add onto the calendar because we know that can be difficult for students, but that can also be difficult for families.
SPEAKER_00I think it's really nice that the school district gives us a couple days to relax and play in the snow. But I'm noticing that you've referred to these days as inclement weather days. Why do you call them that?
SPEAKER_02So again, that is a change as I have learned about the school district of Washington. And several years ago, there were there were some days that you and you all probably remember too, being in high school. I think you were probably in elementary school during those years, that there were some flood days in Washington.
SPEAKER_01Weren't we all for like a whole week or two?
SPEAKER_02Right at the end of the school year, too, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we had the last day of school.
SPEAKER_02Right, didn't have the last day of school. So we have to be very careful here. Most school districts can count call them as snow days, and once March and April hit and the weather's beautiful, then all is good to go. Unfortunately for us, because we have the beautiful river that we have, there is always a possibility of flood days. So we don't want to have them. But I try and refer to our inclement weather days or our snow days as those inclement weather days because it's never quite done for us, depending on what the spring weather looks like. So we would utilize that count would continue if there were flood days. So we wouldn't start over our count for additional six days. It is the accumulation of those count days, whether it's snow or flood days. So hopefully we don't have those. And once spring hits, we can say we're good to go. But I always pause a little bit and say inclement weather days.
SPEAKER_01You can never be too sure.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so we used to have to add days at the end of the calendar at the school year. So we'd have like school going this summer, but do we have to do that now that we all have computers?
SPEAKER_02So now that we have the e-learning days seven through ten and the e-learning plus days 11 on, we do not, we are not looking at adding calendar days. Now, does that mean that something horrific could have happened? We we don't want that to happen. But at this point in time, we do not have to add those on. Our calendar has allowed us the days that we have, those one through six and then seven on.
SPEAKER_01I really like that asset because like whenever I was younger, I know like one year we went to like June 8th or something was our last day. And I know me being a senior, it's really nice to know that like our graduation day is on a set day this year instead of it being switched around. But uh we just want to say thank you, Dr. Kepphart, for giving us the inside scoop on inclement weather days. Is there anything else you would like to share before we end this?
SPEAKER_02I think the biggest thing I would say for you all is realize there is so much more that goes into the decision. There are days that it looks like that you as students would really like a snow day, but we end up going to school. I want you to know that we end up going to school, first of all, because it's safe to do that, but also because we do know that throughout winter and then into the spring too, we could be adding on to those days. So I want to try and save our six days as much as we can, and then those additional days as much as we can too. So the biggest thing that I would also remind students and families is when the weather looks like it's getting bad, take home your Chromebooks so you have them at home if you need them. That's always a good reminder this time of year. And be watching for our normal mechanism for communication through Twitter, through those phone calls that are made from Craig, and know that we are putting the safety of our students, our buses, our families at the forefront of the decisions that we make each and every time.
SPEAKER_00Even though we always want the snow day called If There Is Potential, we appreciate your concern for our safety and our learning. Let's hope we have six and call it good for this year.
SPEAKER_02I think that sounds good for me too. Thank you to Taylor and to Lily, and a big thanks to the CAPS broadcasting team today. And thank you to our listeners for partnering with us as the weather changes and we live out the School District of Washington mission to inspire achievement, character, and personal growth in all students as they pursue and succeed in college, careers, and life. Join us next year in 2023 when we visit with Mr. McCullough for a financial overview of the district and facility updates. Have a wonderful holiday and a new year.
SPEAKER_01Check out the show notes and don't forget you can connect with the district on Facebook, Twitter at SD of Washington, and the website washington.k twelve.mo.us. And remember, Blue Jays.
SPEAKER_02Rock on!
SPEAKER_01Respect, ownership, commitment, and kindness.