Anderson County School District

CLINTON, Tennessee — It's back to the books for students across East Tennessee after snow and icy roads kept them from the classroom. 

Some school districts, including Anderson County, missed most of last week. Others were out even longer.

After five unexpected snow days, school leaders at Grand Oaks Elementary School in Anderson County said it's not a rush, it's a reset. Chrissy Rose, a third-grade teacher, said the first step is rebuilding a routine.

"I appreciated coming back on a Friday because it gave us a day after a week off to get back into routines, reestablish expectations with our students, and kind of go over our schedules again with them. They're really resilient, so they know coming back what to expect," said Rose.

Rose said a check-in is important after snow days because they're very different from planned breaks. She said planned breaks are usually filled with visiting family or going on trips, but the unexpected nature of snow days leaves kids in different places.

"They may not have been able to leave their house for four days, so they come in really like pent-up energy because they were iced in, or maybe they were able to leave and do some things," said Rose.

She encouraged parents to read with their students at home because it helps every grade. Students are not sent home with homework when there are snow days.

For some students, like 3rd grader Saylor Bullock, getting back into the swing of things was easy.

"I'm really good at math, I'm really good at ELA, I'm really good at science," said Bullock.

She said over the break, she mixed having fun outside and reading. She said her teachers are helping students with warm-ups.

"What Ms. Rose does is like give us a little um quiz on comparing fractions and we always have this thing where we do it in the morning as warm ups, and so like it lets us like get back into it a bit better so we dive right back into fractions," said Bullock.

Jessica Conatser, the school's principal, said Anderson County's nine built-in snow days offer flexibility.

"Our county plans ahead. Any given year, we have between eight and 10 snow days scheduled within our school year for when those things happen. So we have come to expect it really," said Conatser.

She said returning on a Friday with an already planned morning assembly helped bring everyone together.

"It was a great opportunity for us to just get them back in there and talk about the importance of being at school and recognize some students with some positive behavior with those character awards. It was a great opportunity for us to just sort of get back in the routine and be able to review those expectations for school," said Conatser.

Teachers at Grand Oaks Elementary School get time every Wednesday to collaborate with their teams. Conatser said this week they'll use the time to look at pacing guides and make a plan for how to get caught up after the snow days.