THE TWO SNOW days that Uni has taken this winter have created a need to change the school calendar to meet the state law of a 180-day school year.

Uni's executive committee will meet Wednesday with Director/Principal Steve Epperson to discuss changes in the school calendar, which was built to accommodate only one snow day.

In fact, just one of Uni's snow days actually resulted from snow. In the case of the the first, on Jan. 24, all schools in the Champaign-Urbana area were closed due to a wind chill as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The second, on Feb. 1, was the result of a winter storm that left 8 inches of snow on the ground.

The executive committee — composed of fine arts department head Rick Murphy, art teacher Lisa Evans, drama teacher Barbara Ridenour, and biology teacher David Stone — helps Epperson and Assistant Director Sue Kovacs with such things as developing the school calendar.

Another view of the Jan. 31 winter storm that closed school the next day. Gargoyle photo (click to enlarge)

After the first snow day, the committee talked of turning the previously scheduled four-day weekend of April 25 to 28 into a three-day weekend, using the 28th as another school attendance day. The second snow day has led Epperson to consider making May 30 — the day before graduation — another school attendance day.

Something similar happened last year. An attendance day during the Disorientation Picnic helped to make up Uni's two snow days in 2007 — Feb. 13 and 14 — when blizzard-like conditions closed all schools, even the University of Illinois. Yearbooks were not passed out until the picnic to keep track of attendance. Before 2007, Uni had not had a snow day since January 1999.

An e-mail sent out to Uni parents and faculty on Feb. 4 explained the situation along with other updates on current school events and concerns. In his message, Epperson expressed second thoughts about canceling school on Jan. 24 due to the wind chill.

“I let myself be influenced by what other schools were doing and sometimes our situation is different from other schools,” Epperson said in the e-mail. “Bottom line though, if I had to do it again, I would have had school on that day.”

On the plus side, an attendance day on May 30 would get rid of the possibility of extending the school year into June.

But what happens if another snow day has to be called? An extended school year would be the only way to satisfy the 180-day requirement. Given the erratic weather of late — snow, freezing rain, thunderstorms, extreme fog, and flood watches in the past week alone — a third snow day is not out of the question.

“We wouldn’t have any other choice than to look at the following week [the first week of June],” said Epperson about a third snow day. “We would have to have seniors take their finals earlier, and graduation would still be on the 31st [of May], but everyone else would have to come back during the following week to finish up, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid. Unfortunately I don’t have much control over the weather.”