The hustle and bustle returned to area schools Wednesday after record-breaking cold extended winter break for students and staff.

A regularly scheduled 10-day break was extended by one day Jan. 2 because of the cold. Then, after students settled back into their classrooms Jan. 3, Gov. Mark Dayton cited extremely frigid temperatures and canceled classes statewide for Monday — a first in 17 years for Minnesota’s governor.

International Falls and other area schools then canceled classes for Tuesday, again citing well-below-zero temperatures.

“From what I’ve been told...school isn’t closed very much up here,” said Falls Superintendent Nordy Nelson Wednesday. “I’ve worked all over the state and knowing the region here...it is more extreme.”

Given the area is prone to experiencing more extreme winter conditions, Nelson said safety of children is the district’s top priority when making the call to close school.

“When it comes to children, their safety comes first in decision making,” he said.

While the forecast can be difficult to work with at times, Nelson said the district also factors in how its equipment would operate in extremely cold temps.

“The mechanical abilities of our vehicles are trustworthy, but things still happen,” he said. “If a bus were to go into the ditch and quit working...it would take very little time for it to reach 0 degrees inside. Then we’re faced with problems of frostbite and freezing. I can’t stress enough that the children come first.”

Make-up days

For this academic year, there has been one early release, one late start, and three cancellations. Nelson said the late start and early release still count as a full school day.

In the past, Nelson said the state of Minnesota required 170 days of classroom instruction or it would withhold state aid. While that number is still “highly recommended,” Nelson said the district wouldn’t receive any less money if it fell short by a few days.

“With the days we’ve missed, (make-up days) will be looked at, but at this time I wouldn’t recommend we run those days,” Nelson said, adding that some school districts designate make-up days, but the local district does not. “The district should set the school calendar to allow some make-up days...possibly around the Easter vacation.”

Rescheduling sports

Falls Athletic Director Kevin Grover said he was busy Tuesday communicating with other athletic directors around the area to reschedule five games that were canceled Tuesday.

“It was probably harder this go around because everyone was out of school,” he said.

Luckily, Grover said each game was successfully rescheduled, except a boys swim meet.

“Both parties chose not to reschedule,” he said of the meet against Virginia.

Jan. 6-10 was designated Winter Sports Week at Falls High School and each sports team was already set to play multiple times this week.

“It gets busy,” Grover said. “We’ve already got some kids playing three times a week and if you schedule any more than that, they have no time for practice.”

He said it’s easy to cancel and reschedule games with priority focused on whether it’s a conference matchup.

“It’s easier to throw a non-conference game out,” he said. “It’s not as big of a deal.”