Snow canceled class for several Minnesota schools. Will kids have to make up the time?

This week's heavy snow may not have broken records, but it still led several Minnesota school districts to pivot to virtual lessons or cancel class altogether.

With weeks of winter left to go — sometimes it snows in April, after all — some districts may need to consider altering their calendars to meet the state's minimum classroom hour requirements.

But nobody's there quite yet. From calling e-learning days to canceling staff in-service days, Minnesota school districts have a variety of tools to avoid extending the academic calendar.

"We're feeling really good about where we are," Hopkins Superintendent Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed said of the district's relatively disruption-free school year.

That's because Hopkins Public Schools can call up to three more e-learning days this academic year after district officials used two of them to deal with this week's snowfall.

Those days don't cut into districts' annual classroom hour requirement. State law requires school boards to set calendars providing no fewer than 935 hours of instruction for students in first through sixth grades and at least 1,020 hours for seventh grade up. Kindergarteners are required to log 425 hours of instruction per year.

State law allows districts to implement up to five e-learning days per year.

Officials in Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan have called four e-learning days so far this year.

"I don't believe any of our schools or programs are in danger of going below the minimum hours required now, but additional cancellations might bring that into play where we would have to add days at the end of the calendar," district spokesman Tony Taschner said.

Of the state's 10 largest districts, Anoka-Hennepin and Rochester have not adopted e-learning plans, instead cancelling classes outright in extreme weather. But officials don't expect they'll fall below their class hour requirements.

"The district is closely monitoring the impact of non-school days due to weather," Anoka-Hennepin spokesman Jim Skelly said. "At this time there are no plans to adjust the calendar for these days."

The last time inclement weather forced Anoka-Hennepin district leaders to cancel classes more than once during the school year was in 2019, when extremely low temperatures and snow led to seven closures across January and February. Officials there didn't alter the school calendar, but district leaders in Hastings and Stillwater held class on Presidents Day to make up for the lost time.

It's not always as easy as tallying up the number of district-wide closures to determine whether another one will affect the school calendar.

In St. Paul, at least three high schools have canceled classes this year due to incidents on or near campus. Students at Washington Technology Magnet School and Central High lost a day after shootings nearby closed their respective campuses. Harding High students were out of class for four days following the fatal stabbing of one of their classmates.

St. Paul Public Schools spokeswoman Erica Wacker said district officials will weigh their options if any campus comes close to falling below the minimum requirements. Those could include shortening spring break or having students attend class on days currently reserved for staff training.

In Hopkins, Mhiripiri-Reed says the district's calendar committee peppers such days throughout the school year to account for disruptions. The district has two faculty training days left on the calendar — which could be come class days — if another big storm hits.

"There's a number of ways we can build cushion into that calendar," Mhiripiri-Reed said.