Parents on makeup day: ‘Leave weekends alone’

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Planning ahead will help limit the impact of weather-related school cancellations in Pender County, but it is not enough to keep students from going to school this weekend.

The school district said classes will be held this Saturday to help make up the time missed when weather forced school to be cancelled three times in the past week. Pender County Schools will operate on a normal schedule Saturday, but will dismiss one hour earlier than a normal school day. Officially the makeup day replaces the time students missed Tuesday.

Parents like Laura Rivenbark said the school system needs to do better planning to avoid makeup days on Saturdays.

“I think they need to leave our weekends alone,” Rivenbark said. “I feel that that is family time. That’s a time when people, you know work during the week and long hours, and they want to get their errands done and spend time with their kids on the weekend. I’d prefer it not be a Saturday, and I hope this is the only one.”

Rivenbark added she thinks the school system’s preparation for the storms this winter have not been the best.

“Our schools were very last minute in making decisions,” Rivenbark said. “Maybe next Saturday would have been more of a notice.”

For now, that’s the only make-up day students and parents will have to worry about. The district says it included more instructional hours in this year’s school calendar than the state required, which covers the time lost last Thursday and yesterday.

Two years ago, state legislators passed a law requiring schools to have a minimum of 185 days within August 26 and June 11 — instead of 180 days. WWAY reached out to Rep. Chris Millis and Sen. Bill Rabon to see if they plan on looking at adjusting school calendars, but they have not returned our calls.