The recent cold weather has given students of HHS and the surrounding counties a slew of delays and cancellations. While the student population has almost entirely been appreciative of it, not all members of the school have been affected positively. Some teachers have been inconvenienced by the delays which have caused a decrease in instructional time, and participants in extracurricular activities have found events delayed or cancelled – such as the postponed Tor Johnson forensics and debate meet – or have not been able to prepare.

Students of the Massanutten Regional Governor’s School, however, have been particularly thrown about by the inclement weather changes. Governor’s School students are in a particular position by which they attend not only the Governor’s School in the morning hours, but also their home school in the afternoon. Because the Governor’s School is located in Mount Jackson, this results in complicated scheduling when working with delays. On a one hour delay, for instance, Shenandoah and Page counties are expected to attend Governor’s School, but Harrisonburg City and Rockingham County students are not. Additionally, as Harrisonburg City students travel across Rockingham County, they are required to pay attention not only to their own delays, but also those of Rockingham and Shenandoah.

Governor’s School and HHS senior Neil Mehta has experienced these rules many times in the past weeks.

“Since the bus that takes us to governors school passes through three counties, if any of them have a delay, governors school is canceled for us. Even though it’s nice that the recent weather has canceled school plenty of times, many of my classes at governors school are out of sync and struggling to get back on schedule,” Mehta said.

This means that January 30th was the first day in the last two weeks in which HHS students have been able to attend Governor’s school. To add to the problems of this extended cancellation, the students were previously about to present their mid-term projects – worth a significant portion of their grade.

Governor’s School and Page County High School senior Ian Mongold was one such student who found their presentation and semester grade delayed.

“With weather and everything we were not been able to meet at Governor’s School to present our sustainable city project, but eventually we got it done,” Mongold said.

For now, things are back to normal – all the groups have presented and the students’ grades are safe – but the predicted continued cold of the winter may have even more cancellations in store.