Another round of snow canceled classes in a couple of Northwest Georgia systems on Monday and all but two Tuesday.
Parents across the region are scrambling to find child care and transportation every time the white stuff snuffs out another school day.
When it's not snowing, Julie Davis' 8-year-old son, Phillip, goes to Cherokee Ridge Elementary School in Chickamauga. Closings mean a good bit of scrambling, she said.
"It presents a challenge because I have to find somewhere for him to go for that day or, if he's in school and I get a call that school's closing, I have to find someone to pick him up because I work in downtown Chattanooga and he's in Chickamauga," Mrs. Davis said.
"Thankfully, I have parents who are retired and, most of the time, they are able to pick him up for me," she said.
Otherwise, Phillip ends up spending the day with his mother at work, she said.
Catoosa and Dade counties intended to make up a weather day on President's Day on Monday, but snow fouled those plans. Dade and Walker lost Tuesday to wintery conditions.
Students in Catoosa and Chickamauga City schools were the only ones in the region making their way to class Tuesday. Students in Dalton, Murray and Whitfield are on winter break this week.
Some counties, like Catoosa, are offsetting weather days with state-ordered furlough days for school employees or through combinations of time-shuffling.
Catoosa spokeswoman Marissa Brower said her system now will treat Monday as the student holiday it was originally scheduled to be. Staff will use it as a furlough day and the calendar still will have March 11 as a future snow day.
Catoosa students will not be required to make up flood days on Sept. 21 or 22, or snow days on Jan. 7 or 8, Ms. Brower said.
Snow days are inconvenient for everyone, so the system tries to make calendar changes quickly to give parents and staff time to revise their schedules, she said.
"The school system tries to minimize calendar changes since families make plans based on the holidays and breaks in the school calendar," she said.
Dade County Superintendent Patty Priest said her district followed a similar path. The intended make-up day Monday will be used as a staff furlough day. One of two snow days will account for Tuesday and that will leave a one-day cushion for the rest of the school year, Mrs. Priest said.
Walker County was able to counter student snow days with the number of instructional hours built into the day, said Eddy Combs, the system's Title I coordinator.
Mr. Combs said changes in state law allow some flexibility on how to weather snow days.
"Under the old law we would have had to make up anything over four days," he said. "Under the new law, it's so many instructional minutes per day across 180 days, so you don't have to go 180 days if your school days are above the minimum.
"We're still OK even with today taken off."
But state laws do little about the inconvenience for parents.
CHECK YOUR CALENDARThe following links either go directly to the system's calendar or to the Web page where it can be viewed. Catoosa County Chickamauga Dade County DaltonWalker County Whitfield County
Catoosa County parent Michelle Sterling has two adult children attending Dalton State College and a 17-year-old at Ringgold High School. None drives and every snowfall is a scramble for the Detroit-area natives.
Joseph, the high schooler, is just a few minutes away and isn't too much trouble to pick up and drop off at home, Mrs. Sterling said. But it's a longer way to fetch Jessica, 19, and Jennifer, 21, she said.
"I'm from the North, and I know how fast (black ice) can form," she said. "I'm just very leery of the other drivers and the roads."
Unlike the flat land around Detroit, Mrs. Sterling said the terrain in North Georgia and the South's lack of snow-removal equipment make it dicey on the roads.
"It makes me real nervous when I drive on them and it's still cold," she said.