ASHEBORO – The Randolph County School System is on the verge of implementing a new plan for days when inclement weather prevents in-school instruction.
With classes already called off numerous times this winter because of weather-related issues, RCSS Superintendent Dr. Stephen Gainey outlined a plan for future instruction, which might involve situations of remote learning.
“I just wanted everyone to know that staff members at each school are making plans to provide remote instruction should we need to employ that strategy,” Gainey said.
The initial message on the topic came in a Jan. 28 announcement. At the time, the school had two more built-in days for “snow days” or other days of canceled classes.
That stemmed, in part, because of a forecast that might have brought weather-related concerns that following weekend, but nothing materialized from that to cause school closings.
But this week was a different story.
Randolph County schools were closed Monday due to concerns about road conditions and the forecast of inclement weather throughout the morning. At first, a two-hour delay to the school day had been announced prior to the updated decision to call off classes for the entire day.
The school system’s information regarding the inclement weather policy was dubbed as “possible change to inclement weather days.”
So now the wiggle room is down to one more day available for the district to use before going to remote instruction. That would be extended for any days that in-person classes are called off because of inclement weather for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year.
Gainey said the use of remote instructional days in relation to missed days of school due to inclement weather hopefully would prevent using scheduled teacher workdays or spring break for make-up time.
Gainey said he wanted parents to understand that when wintry weather is anticipated, their children might come home with additional instructional resources and / or technology devices that will be needed should remote instruction be needed.
Prior to this week, schools had been closed Jan. 3, 21 and 24 in addition to multiple days of delayed openings because of inclement weather.
