END OF SCHOOL year is coming up quickly

Students are entering the final weeks of the school year, which will end a little later than most districts planned. Calendars have been extended to make up for days lost to winter weather. KOTV's

Tuesday, May 8th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Students are entering the final weeks of the school year, which will end a little later than most districts planned. Calendars have been extended to make up for days lost to winter weather. KOTV's Glenda Silvey looks at when some area schools will ring the closing bell.

It was great fun at the time, but the winter weather that closed schools for several days means some students will stay in class a few days longer this May. Tulsa Public Schools plugged one snow day into this year's calendar, with classes scheduled to end May 18th. John Hamil with Tulsa Public Schools "The incredible winter we had gave us six days of school cancellations due to snow, primarily because of transportation, you work the math, and it comes out to May 25th." Most area districts will close on or before May 25th, ahead of the Memorial Day holiday. Broken Arrow is the exception, closing May 31st, but reopening around the same time as other area districts, in mid August. Though Broken took three snow days, they didn't push back the close of school, it was last year's August 24th opening. Students will have three more days of school after Memorial Day. Dr Gary Gerber, Assistant BA Superintendent "And it's difficult to bring kids back after that. You know, they've sort of checked out."

Except for seniors, that hasn't started happening in most Tulsa schools yet, according to teachers. They say students realized they'd have to make up snow days, and aren't complaining about the extra days of school. In fact, there's still plenty of learning going on. Edison High School Latin teacher, Gayle Wallace, "We're still doing new material, you know, we're just treating every day as a separate day and we have new material to cover and we're going to be school as usual." But only for 13 more days.

The school year will end sooner for high school seniors. Most area commencement ceremonies are scheduled for next week.