The cost of all this winter's snow days will be the loss of a little springtime fun for many area students.
Two school systems — Anne Arundel and Harford counties — already have shortened spring break to ensure their students get the state-required 180 days of school, while others are considering the same move.
The snow days also might mean that the final day of classes won't arrive in many school districts until mid-June or later.
Last winter, during which most Maryland children lost nearly two weeks of school, led many systems to build extra days into their calendars in case of snow this season. Once those days are expended, some districts choose to cut into spring break or teacher training days, or add days to the end of the school year.
Baltimore City built five additional days into the calendar for snow and has used all of them. Baltimore County built in seven snow days and used the last one Friday.
Anne Arundel County, which has had six snow days, is cutting one day — March 30 — from spring break, and Harford County, which has had 10 snow days, will take away two days in spring break — April 9 and 10.
Anne Arundel County parent Jeff Macris said he will have to rethink a road trip to Florida with his family because spring break will now start a day later.
"I am not going to lose sleep over it," he said. "I suspect there are going to be a lot of families that have made nonrefundable airplane purchases."
Macris said he suspects many students will be absent on Monday, March 30. He said he understands there are trade-offs.
"The safety of the kids has got to come first," he said. "We trust the administration to make the right call."
And while his children lost one day of spring break, they gained a day of fun Friday. At the first sign that school would be closed, Macris decided to "seize the moment" and piled all the kids in the car for a day on the ski slopes.
Education leaders in Carroll County, which has had 10 snow days, will decide next week how to make up the days. Howard County has to make up three days, but it has rarely shortened spring break.
There is another option for schools. With all the snow days last year, 15 districts asked the state to waive the 180-day requirement. Seven of the districts asked for as many as five days to be waived. The state did grant some waivers, but they were usually for fewer days than the districts requested.
So far, only one county in the state — Garrett — has asked the state school board for a waiver from the calendar rules, and that was to hold school on the Monday after Easter. The state requires school systems to be off on that day and Good Friday.
But in the state's westernmost county, where the temperatures plummeted to as low as minus-20 this winter and snowfall averages 140 inches a year, schools Superintendent Janet S. Wilson said students often don't get spring break.
"I think people wait very late to make spring break plans because of that," Wilson said. "People tend to understand."
Wilson said the loss of instructional time is astounding when added up over the years. She decided to see how many weather-related days off her 2014 graduates had experienced in all their years in school. So she went back to the record books and tallied it up — a total of 111 days. When she added in all the two-hour delays, the total was 171 days off.
It was an exercise to help her make the case to state leaders that starting the school year after Labor Day, which has been proposed in the legislature to benefit the state's tourism destinations, would reduce the number of instructional hours that her teachers would have before the annual statewide tests are administered.
While many of those hours lost are added to the end of the school year, Wilson said, such added hours are not as important as those lost in the middle of the school year.
Even if there are no more closures for weather this winter, some school systems haven't determined how to make up the days already lost.
Howard County still needs to find a way to add three days to its calendar. A preliminary proposal in Carroll would add one day to the end of the school year and cut three days of spring break.
Kari Oakes, the parent of an Anne Arundel high school student, said she isn't annoyed with the school system for taking away a day of spring break.
"I can't really fault them for doing it this way. They gave us plenty of notice," said Oakes, adding that the winter's lesson is simple. "I think what it really shows is that Mother Nature is still boss."
Days off
A look at how all snow days have affected area school systems, as of Friday:
Anne Arundel County: 6 snow days; 1 day of spring break lost.
Baltimore City: 5 snow days; no loss of spring break.
Baltimore County: 7 snow days; no loss of spring break.
Carroll County: 10 snow days; decision pending.
Harford County: 10 snow days; 2 spring break days lost.
Howard County: 8 snow days; decision pending.