Four furlough days put back on school calendar to make up for snow days

By Damian Mann for Ashland.news

The Ashland School Board on Thursday night turned recent snow days into furlough days and took the first step to initiate potential layoffs in the 2025-26 school year.

A letter, which the board unanimously approved, will start a 30-day period for the district and the Ashland Education Association to discuss a potential reduction in force, or RIF, to deal with ongoing budget shortfalls.

Jill Franko, school board member, said the letter being sent out about the potential layoffs, or reduction in force, “feels very bad.”

“We would like to stop approving this,” Franko said, pointing out that the district has undergone similar budget problems in the past.

Franko asked Superintendent Joseph Hattrick if he had any details that he could share on what the layoffs would look like.

Hattrick said he could share no more light on the situation other than to say any potential layoffs wouldn’t happen in this school year.

In the letter, it states that, after the 30-day consultation period with the union, “affected employees will receive notice from their building principals or department supervisors. This notice will include the proposed time schedule and reasons for the proposed action.”

In other action, the school board unanimously approved using four snow days, Feb. 3-6, as part of the six furlough days announced recently to partially deal with a $2.2 million budget shortfall this school year.

As a result, March 5, April 11, April 14 and June 2 have been reinstated as instructional days.

March 6 and 7 will remain furlough days. They were previously going to be parent-teacher conference days.

April 21 was already set aside to make up for any potential snow-day closure, and it will replace the February 7 snow day.

As a result of the furlough days affecting conference days, Hattrick said, teachers “don’t have the time to meet with all the parents.”

But he said parents can always contact teachers throughout the school year to share any concerns.

Furlough days are days when employees, including teachers, don’t get paid and schools are closed. Each closed day saves the district about $150,000.

Other measures have been taken to deal with the shortfall, including reductions in extra-duty contracts, spending freezes, and cuts to travel and professional development for administrators. An anonymous donor has given the district $890,000 to help with the shortfall.

In the 2025-26 school year, Hattrick said the district will face an immediate $2 million to $3 million cash crunch, which might require a short-term loan that would be paid off when property tax dollars roll in.

“The loan would likely be paid off in December,” he said.

He said the amount of the loan will depend on how well the district manages expenses in the intervening months.

In other business, Hattrick told the board that maintenance crews worked tirelessly to deal with issues from “snowmageddon,” his reference to the week of snow that closed schools from Feb. 3-7.

He said many district employees worked through the night to deal with the snow days.

“When I moved here, I was told it didn’t snow much here,” Hattrick said.

In addition to removing snow from campuses, with help from Phoenix and Talent, the district had a number of issues with heating and air conditioning systems, which automatically shut down during freezing temperatures to protect coils in the units.

As a result, some rooms in schools were either too cold or too hot.

There were also leaky roofs, but Hattrick said there were no issues similar to the collapsed roof at the gymnasium at North Medford High.

The district has been remodeling schools, and in some cases replacing roofs.

Hattrick said the decision to close schools wasn’t an easy one, but he said it was in consultation with staff, other superintendents and discussions with the National Weather Service.

He said a number of factors play into the decision to close for snow, including whether it is safe to bus, drive or walk students to school and to get them back home again.

He said the area has many microclimates, so one location may be relatively snow free on roads, while another location is snowed in.

When Hattrick considers the many issues around closing a school because of snow, he said, “I do not think about how people feel. I think about safety first.”

Reach freelance writer Damian Mann at dmannnews@gmail.com.