Many Carol County Public School students enjoyed extra sleep or play Thursday morning because the school was postponed for two hours due to the predicted cold. Decisions that delay rather than school will be reassessed at 7:15 a.m.
According to the school system website, the system rarely reassesses the decision to delay opening a school, but such reassessments can result in a full-day closure.
Three bad weather cancellations were built into the school system's 2024-2025 calendar. If these three are used, the last day will remain on June 13. If it is no longer used, the last day will be changed to June 12th. It was used for two days in early January.
If a fourth cancellation is necessary this year, then principal Cynthia McCabe can claim exemption from the state’s school year to 180 days. McCabe successfully demanded a waiver in 2023.
The 2024-2025 calendar has three emergency closing days built-in, which is lower than the five days in the 2023-2024 calendar. The county has used only one of four emergency deadlines built into the 2022-2023 calendar.
The 2025-2026 calendar will have four emergency deadlines.
Asynchronous snowfall days (when students complete the course themselves) are no longer in Carroll because Carroll no longer has laptops assigned to all graders.
When McCabe decided to cut technology replacements in May to balance the fiscal year 2025 budget, the region removed the ability to asynchronous teaching days. “Usually, we don't buy replacement laptops at the basic level,” McCabe said in May.
McCabe's so-called “small decrease” in its fiscal 2025 operating budget is a “small decrease” that bridges the funding gap.
McCabe added that the federal coronavirus primary and secondary school emergency relief fund expires in the fall is designated to purchase some student equipment. More than $3 billion in Esser funds were provided to schools in Maryland to cover the costs associated with the pandemic. The Maryland Department of Education said Carroll used most of his Esser funds to textbooks and supplies.
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