When Rowan-Salisbury officials announced a makeup day for Tuesday’s snow day, people were confused.

After a particularly active winter last year, the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education decided to add 10 minutes to each school day. That time was to serve two purposes – to add much-needed instructional time and to give district administration more options when dealing with inclement weather.

“It was never our intent not to use our makeup days,” said Superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody.

“People just made that assumption that that time was just there for snow days. That’s not what we intended,” said school board Chairman Josh Wagner. “The initial goal, as far as administration is concerned, was to give more instructional time in the day.”

In North Carolina, public school systems are required to provide at least 185 days or 1,025 hours of academic instruction to students each year. Teachers must work 215 days. Law also mandates that school begin no earlier than the Monday closest to Aug. 26 and end no later than the Friday closest to June 11.

“The calendar that’s mandated is so strict,” said Public Information Officer Rita Foil.

“Last year, like many school districts, we found ourselves in a bind,” Moody said.

“We missed a lot of days and a lot of hours,” Foil added.

After Rowan County resident Susan Burris heard the district had scheduled March 26 as a makeup day for Tuesday, she published a post entitled, “Are snowflakes flexible?” which was widely shared via social media Tuesday.

In it, Burris says that with the additional 10 minutes a day, plus any additional “banked” snow days, teachers could end up working up to four additional days “with no additional pay.”

“Correct me if I am wrong, but I feel a teacher’s salary is already a degrading compensation, but this just amplifies that even more,” she said.

“I have many friends and family members that are teachers in Rowan County and surrounding counties,” Burris said via email.

Before the school year started, Burris said, she was having a discussion with her teacher friends about the added 10 minutes to each day.

“Most of them disagreed with the added minutes, but were encouraged that this would more than likely alleviate the need to use all the designated snow makeup days along with spring break if needed.  This would allow more time for family vacations without interruption, as well, for students and teachers alike,” Burris said.

She added that she’s received many responses from teachers and parents alike “due to the seeming injustice of this extra time enforcement with no clear explanation of how these additional hours will be used if there is no more inclement weather.”

Moody said the amount of time worked by each teacher could vary from school to school because of schedules or bus times, but that she and other district leaders are looking into that issue.

“We’re trying to collect that data now,” she said. “We always want to do the right thing by our employees and our students.”

New school board member Travis Allen weighed in on the issue on his Facebook page Monday evening. By Tuesday evening, the post had more than 60 likes and had been shared nearly 100 times.

In it, Allen stated that numerous parents and staff contacted him about losing a spring break day when students were attending school for an additional 10 minutes each day.

“Basically the answer I received stated that the 10 minutes extra each day was to be used for inclement weather on the back end. In other words, these will be used after spring break days, or for extra instructional time,” he said.

Allen said he would ask that the topic be brought up at Monday’s school board meeting. In later comments, he encouraged people to come speak at the meeting to make sure their opinions were heard.

“I would like to see if we can use this 10 minute a day time upfront instead of after spring break days are used,” he added.

When reached Tuesday, Allen declined to comment any further.

Moody warned that social media posts can spread quickly, and are often based on both fact and emotion.

“Inaccurate sound bites are not necessarily the truth,” she said.

Wagner said several people have also asked him about the policy, and that it would indeed be on the agenda for Monday’s meeting to clarify the issue to the board, especially new members who weren’t on the board when the decision was made.

“Hopefully we’ll give some clarity on Monday night,” he said, adding that it will be discussed toward the beginning of the meeting, right after celebrations.

A response to the confusion issued by district officials stated, “The added time was intended to protect instruction and not to lose instruction. It was not intended to be the first resource for missed school days due to inclement weather.”

The response went on to say that the district tries to avoid impacting spring break or Saturdays, because they are unpopular times with both parents and teachers.

March 26 and 27 were designated by the calendar committee as the two makeup days for the 2014-15 school year. These days are the Thursday and Friday before the district’s spring break, which is scheduled during the four days from March 30 until April 2, which is a Monday through a Thursday. That Friday, April 3, is a holiday.

“March 26 and March 27 are teacher workdays and are not considered part of spring break. They are designated as make up days in the school calendar,” the statement says.

Moody said she can understand how people might have been confused by the calendar because of those days’ close proximity to spring break.

“I understand why people are upset, or how people might have misinterpreted that,” she said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that the week of the (April) 30^th isn’t touched.”

She added that once the two makeup days are used, the additional instructional time will be used before using spring break time or having school on a Saturday.

“We’re going to use that time to waive,” she said.

When Foil announced class would be canceled today as well, no makeup day was set.

“This one looks like it’s going to last a while. We’re not sure what we’re going to do,” she said, adding that district officials were unsure if there would be school Thursday or Friday.

“Every single day we have a late start, they have to recalculate hours every time. It is complex,” Moody said. “We’ve really worked hard to try to notify parents of students as soon as possible.”