Hagerstown schools change snow day schedule

Nettle Creek School Corp. approved its 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 school calendars with one change.

At their March 12 meeting, board members heard a recommendation to implement live online learning days if needed for bad weather to avoid adding days to the end of the school year.

Superintendent Emily Schaeffer noted that in the past, Nettle Creek has used built-in makeup days, eLearning days (asynchronous learning), and then added on to the end of the school year.

However, concerns about student attendance and staffing for built-in makeup days continue.

In the new calendars, Nettle Creek will use two built-in makeup days on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents Day if needed, followed by two eLearning days.

If they close school after the four built-in days, they would use live interactive online instruction (called synchronous learning) rather than using the Friday before spring break or adding on to the end of the school year.

Synchronous learning won’t be as long as a regular school day.

Nettle Creek will provide time for staff to get support on creating synchronous learning plans and will educate community members about how it works.

Preschool through third grade will still use packets instead of devices.

Mike Banning, Sandi Schraub, Shaun Lieberman, Ruthie LaMar and Cody Sankey voted yes. Julie Blaase and Marcie Houghton were absent.

Other business

• Preschool: Elizabeth Bryant shared 2025-2026 preschool enrollment. Enrollment is higher this year for 3-year-olds. Currently, 22 3-year-olds are enrolled and more than 20 4-year-olds, plus 28 students for summer daycare.
• Staff development: Pam Chew, Jamie Claywell, Shaye Fisher, Bryant and Schaeffer attended National Institute for Excellence in Teaching’s national conference in Washington, D.C., to learn about high-quality instruction and teacher leadership.
• Student recognition: Schaeffer attended Family, Career and Community Leaders of America’s state conference, receiving the Superintendent Division’s Outstanding Administrator Award. Hagerstown Jr.-Sr. High School student Charley Rinehart served as FCCLA’s 2024-2025 Indiana vice president of development and advocacy. Rinehart received gold in the Job Interview competition and is a national conference alternate. Bronze earners were Sophia Farmer in Repurpose Redesign and Madyson Watkins and Hope Dutkiewicz in Focus on the Basics. Sam Dusek won Indiana’s Voice of Democracy Competition through Veterans of Foreign Wars, and will go to Washington, D.C., to find his national placement.
• Personnel: Hires: Courtney Meeks, on-call substitute teacher; Rebecca Dawson, preschool/daycare assistant; Ainsley Ziegler, Hagerstown Elementary instructional assistant; Isabel Neuman and Lucy Neuman, daycare assistants; Joel Estrada, junior high wrestling volunteer; Quaid Mull, baseball volunteer. Departure: Jaime Rector, environmental/transportation secretary.
• Policies: Several policies were approved after second reading on topics including civility/decorum, board authority and philosophy, school board leadership and support, memberships, meetings, school board member ethics, medical needs, superintendent evaluations, board-superintendent relationship, student records and inspection of materials, and questioning of students. First readings took place on whistleblower protection, no tobacco, school wellness, no distracted driving, communicable disease, entrance age requirements, security provisions for statewide tests, drug prevention and testing, and district organization.
• Next meeting: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, at Hagerstown Elementary’s Media Center. The public may attend.