The Minnesota Senate votes today (11am start) on a compromise bill that says school districts — this year only — do *not* have to make up extra “snow days” that bad weather forced them to take. Some worry students will lose too many days of classroom instruction. But Rochester Republican Carla Nelson argues local control is best, because districts don’t take lightly any decision to cancel classes. Nelson says, “School districts — superintendents — who make that call about closing school, number one, they want their kids in school too, but they don’t want to risk kids’ lives to get them there.”
The House version of the bill allowed only three extra “snow days” (during January’s “polar vortex”) that districts would not have to make up later. But Senate negotiators got their way, leaving open-ended the number of classroom days a district can cancel for health and safety reasons.