Neither Isle of Wight’s nor Surry’s public schools expect to need additional instructional days to compensate for the multiple weather-related closures this winter.

Isle of Wight County Schools, prior to closing for two consecutive days Feb. 19-20 due to Winter Storm Kingston, had seen four separate full-day closures for snow this year. Friday, Feb. 21, was what school officials call an “asynchronous day” when students and staff stay home but work virtually.

State law requires school systems to have either 180 school days or at least 990 instructional hours per school year. IWCS spokeswoman Lynn Briggs said the division has followed the 990-hour guideline for many years.

“As of now, IWCS will meet the required 990 hours even with the time missed this school year,” Briggs said.

It’s a sharp change from the prior two years when IWCS went two consecutive winters without any snow accumulation and declared “snow days” in May to make up for the extra time built into those year’s school calendars.

Surry County Public Schools Superintendent Herbert Monroe said SCPS hasn’t had to make any major changes to its school year calendar due to having three asynchronous days Feb. 19-21.

During an asynchronous day, “students access learning materials and complete assignments at their own pace, without live, real-time interaction with teachers during class time; often used in situations like weather-related closures where students need to learn remotely but not necessarily at the same time as a group,” Monroe said. “To prepare for this shift, division leaders informed building principals to make sure all instructional staff prepare review packets that cover only previously taught concepts.”

“However, we are going to push back our Writing SOL dates to March 19-20 to give students back the six in-person days they have missed,” Monroe said.

SCPS, prior to Winter Storm Kingston, had had five weather-related closures since January.