Centre school district shut down until after holidays
End of semester moved to Jan. 11
By ROWENA PLETT
Staff writer
Like everyone else in northern Marion County, Centre USD 397 lost electricity Dec. 11 due to an ice storm.
After canceling its monthly meeting twice due to the weather, the board of education met Monday at the emergency shelter set up at Lincolnville Community Center and decided to cancel classes for the remainder of the year.
The consensus was that, even if power was restored by Thursday, as was projected by Flint Hills RECA, it would take a day to get the facilities up and running — including heat, water, and food. And classes already had been scheduled to be dismissed by noon Friday.
Superintendent Jerri Kemble said, like everyone else, school personnel did what they could to deal with the situation.
Kemble used an information hot line at 785-983-4858 to keep students, patrons, and staff up-to-date on school cancellations during the outage.
Clerk Peggy Falen made out payroll checks from her home, which was equipped with a generator.
Technician Russ Hake made sure all computers were unplugged to prevent damage from a possible power surge as the electricity came back on.
Custodians drained water pipes and threw out spoiled food. Some food was donated to the emergency shelter at Lincolnville.
Athletic director Greg Wyatt connected with other schools to reschedule the seven sports events which were canceled. (See sports section for changes in dates.)
Kemble reported that the district will make up lost class time in various ways.
She said the two snow days which were provided in the schedule will make up for four lost days because the state gives two days of credit for every snow day scheduled.
The board voted to change an in-service day scheduled for Jan. 3 to a regular school day. They also moved the end of the semester from Dec. 21 to Jan. 11 to allow teachers and students to complete their work.
Kemble said after March 1 more decisions will be made on how to make up the additional hours. Options include adding a little more time to each school day, cutting spring break short, and/or adding days at the end of the year.
