Some Lawrence school employees don’t get paid for snow days

Lawrence school district teachers and their licensed colleagues won’t be collecting any special pay for any makeup time spent in the classroom, library or anywhere else their contracts call for because of days lost to snow.

“There would be no additional compensation for that,” said David Cunningham, the district’s director of human resources. “You’re not going to get paid any extra or work any less. If we make it up, you’re going to make it up in one way or another.”

Administrators, likewise, don’t get paid extra if a school year ends up being extended, either by tacking a few minutes onto each school day or adding days to the end of the school year. Many administrators end up working snow days anyway, although the district’s central office closed at noon Tuesday because of mounting blizzard conditions.

Members of the district’s classified staff — secretaries, paraeducators, library media assistants, custodians, food service works and others — face different compensation issues, depending on their schedules, Cunningham said.

Classified employees scheduled to work could be paid for such a snow day, but only if they took a vacation day. Such employees could not do so, however, if the snow day was going to be made up later in the year.

Classified employees are paid based solely on time at work, Cunningham said, whether that’s two hours, six hours or eight hours per shift.

“They’re on an hourly basis,” Cunningham said. “If they log time, we pay them. If they don’t log time, we don’t.”