The State Department of Education decided to extend the MCPS school year by one day, following the acceptance of MCPS’ interim superintendent Larry Bowers’ snow waiver to make up for instructional days lost due to inclement weather.

After denying MCPS’ initial waiver, which requested that all missed school days be excused, the state approved a new proposal, which allowed MCPS to make up only one of the two original make-up days.

The last day of school will now be Monday June 20. For high schoolers, this will likely be final exam makeup day according to principal Alan Goodwin.

Some students believe the extension is unnecessary since families have already scheduled vacations or camps starting June 20.

“A lot of students probably won’t show up at school,” freshman Eva Herscowitz said.

In contrast, most teachers anticipated the addition of extra days and planned accordingly.

“I think many teachers were already operating on the assumption that they were going to extend the school year,” English teacher resource Linda Leslie said.

Leslie expressed an opinion shared by many teachers and students, which is that the extra day won’t affect school very much.

“In terms of getting bang for your buck, it’s only one day,” Leslie said.“It seems fairly small in the larger scheme of things.”