Snow days hit double digits for 3 Nova Scotia school boards

The number of snow days for Nova Scotia students are piling up just as fast as the flakes on the ground, and there's still a month of winter ahead.

Students who attend schools in Kings County and West Hants have racked up a dozen snow days the most in the province this winter.

By comparison, the Halifax Regional School Board has had the fewest cancellations due to snow with students missing 7.5 days.

When it rains, it pours

Overall, however, students in Cape Breton have actually had the worst luck when it comes to cancellations this school year or perhaps the best, depending on who's being asked.

There have been 11 snow days in Victoria County and 10 at schools in the rest of the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board coverage area.

Those numbers are higher when a Thanksgiving weekend rainstorm is factored in. That saw students miss two more days.

Students at Brookland Elementary in Sydney missed another four days on top of that when they had to be relocated after the October rain storm. For those students, the total is a whopping 16 days more than three weeks of missed classes.

Strike closures

A contract dispute between the province and 9,300 public school teachers also caused a couple of cancellations.

There were across-the-board closures Dec. 3 when the government decided work-to-rule would put students at risk.

Classes were cancelled again last Friday when teachers staged a one-day province wide strike to protest legislation to impose a contract on them.

Safety top of mind

Roberta Kubik, superintendent of the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, said weather-related cancellations are decided with the safety of students in mind.

"Nova Scotia's school year calendar has five days built in for cancellations due to inclement weather," Kubik said in an emailed statement.

"Only the minister of education and early childhood development has the authority to change the school year, and we understand this would only occur in very exceptional circumstances."

Longer school year?

Education Minister Karen Casey did not indicate she was considering extending the school year, though she noted that has been done in the past to make up for repeated closures.

"We can't control the weather, unfortunately," Casey said Wednesday.

"There are professional development days, there are other things within a school schedule that school principals and school teachers may look at to try to make sure that the students do get the curriculum covered that they need."