IDAHO CITY, Idaho — All the recent snowfall is hitting some Idaho mountain towns hard.
Not only has there been a lot of snow - upwards of several feet - but it has come down in a short period of time over the last couple weeks.
“You know it was a pretty mild winter until the last couple weeks and then Mother Nature just reminded us, you know what, she’s still around,” said Paul Head, owner of Trudy’s Kitchen in Idaho City. “January was like 50 degrees and then the last couple weeks we’ve really been making up for it.”
Bobby Mathews owns Idaho City Grocery and he said after all the snow Sunday night, he had a hard time even getting inside his business.
“It’s just been beating us up the whole time,” he said. “We had 14 inches in our breezeway and then the whole roof slid off and so we had to dig a tunnel to get to the back door just to get into the store.”
All that snow in such a short period of time has caused high piles of snow to build up and messy road conditions, forcing several school closures.
Some school districts are already reporting more closures so far this winter than in years past.
The McCall-Donnelly School District said it’s had four emergency closure days so far, plus another day with a two-hour delayed start. The district has announced that it will be closed for a fifth time - on Tuesday.
Jim Foudy, superintendent for the McCall-Donnelly School District, said having that many snow days is rare for the district.
“We have strong county resources that are used to dealing with inclement weather conditions and so it is rare that we close school,” he said. “Last year we only closed school one day, and I think in the last ten years, you can probably count on one hand the number of times that we’ve closed the school.”
Cascade School District has also had four emergency closure days, according to its superintendent Jeff Blaser.
In an email to KTVB, Blaser said he’s new to the school district but the community tells him this many snow days are rare for them too.
“Longtime community members have mentioned to me this is the kind of snow they used to see years ago,” Blaser wrote. “According to one long-time resident, Cascade hasn’t missed more than two days in over 15 years.”
Brian Hunicke, superintendent for the Basin School District in Idaho City, said it’s much the same for them.
He said this is the most snow closures in a long time for the community – and the snow just keeps building.
“We have mountains of snow at the high school and elementary,” Hunicke told KTVB. “Our maintenance supervisor is running out of room to store the excess snow.”
Under Idaho law, school districts have a minimum number of allotted hours of instructional time that students must be in school.
Foudy said the number of hours vary by school district, but each usually builds in more instructional time into the calendar than the state minimum to allow for missed days due to emergencies.
He said McCall-Donnelly has about 100 hours. It would take several snow days to reach those hours to have to make up the days, but that doesn’t mean it’s not taking a toll on student learning.
“Anytime students are out of school for an extended period of time, I think it’s difficult for both students and teachers to manage teaching and learning. It’s tough,” Foudy said.
In February, three straight snow days led to a five-day break from students being in the classroom. Foudy said they would like avoid gaps like that in students’ classroom time, but sometimes it cannot be helped.
“But ultimately, safety of our students and their families is paramount so if we have to, we have to,” he added.
Blaser said he agrees that gaps in school days can be tough on students and staff.
“I’m sure every teacher would agree that any break in the learning process is tough on student achievement,” he said. “As for affecting curriculum, irregular breaks require teachers to take more time to review and even re-teach critical concepts. Our teachers work hard every day to enrich, differentiate and accommodate student learning. Snow days make it just a little more challenging.”
Foudy said McCall-Donnelly used to have make-up days built into their calendar to compensate for missed snow days, but they were used so rarely that they were taken out.
He said after all these recent snow days, his leadership team is working on possible contingency plans to present to the school board. Foudy said in the future, they may look at building make-up days back into the district calendar.
Follow KTVB to stay up-to-date with all the latest school closures and delays.