Four days is a lot to make up in a 180-day school year.

That’s the task at hand for South Whidbey School District after a week of snow days. With at least 10 inches of snow on the South End last week, District Superintendent Jo Moccia said the choice to cancel classes was “easy.”

“There’s no way the buses could get around on those side roads, even the main roads,” she said.

As superintendent, the call was hers alone to make. There was some consultation, however — she spoke with the district’s transportation department and drove some of the roads to examine the conditions.

Reverting to snow routes was considered but was deemed too risky for students.

“Ultimately it’s the superintendent’s decision to make with a few people who actually drive the roads,” Moccia said. “In this case, it was fairly easy.”

The school district’s plan is to recover one snow day Friday, Feb. 17. That Friday, before the President’s Day weekend, was the only makeup day built into the school calendar.

Moccia said the tentative plan is to add the other three days to the end of the year in June. That would extend the school year from June 15 to June 20.

Others agree that might be the proper approach.

“We’re probably going to add on three days in June,” said School Board Chairman Steve Scoles.

Still, it’s not yet certain.

“There’s a possibility our school year could be shortened by the state of emergency,” Scoles said.

The district’s first choice is to have two snow days waived by the state superintendent’s office. Moccia is in the process of filling out the request, and didn’t know when to expect a response.

“There’s no guarantee though,” Moccia said. “It doesn’t seem that there’s a history of having requested that waiver, so it’s a new process (for South Whidbey).”

In the meantime, Moccia and the teachers union, the South Whidbey Education Association, is working on the 2012-2013 school year calendar. One thing she is evaluating is the addition of at least another built-in snow day.

“If we need it, it’s there. If not, that’s great,” Moccia said.

“Doing something this far in advance is not as complicated as trying to fix something after the fact.”

Moccia, who began her job in June, inherited a calendar created by her predecessor Fred McCarthy. Also, with two new board members — Linda Racicot and Damian Greene — it was approved by a different school board.

Moccia led a school district in upstate New York, where it was common to have six built-in make-up days. That’s not the case in Western Washington.

“It’s hard to build them into the calendar before June,” Scoles said. “Other days can be targeted, but it’s hard to do that.”

“If we can build in a snow day or two before June, we’ll try to do that,” he added.

Unless South Whidbey can find make-up days before June or get some of them waived, graduation will be delayed. Students who missed an entire week of school will soon experience the impact, as the semester was extended one week. The semester break will remain Monday, Jan. 30.

“It allowed the teachers a break in there,” Scoles said.

The district’s spring break, scheduled for April 2-6, will probably be unaffected by any makeup days. Parents made vacation plans at the start of the year, and officials said they want to honor that time.

“People make plans way in advance to have a vacation then,” Scoles said.

In previous years, Scoles said the school board had the goal to end school by June 15 or June 20. Weather has prolonged the school year the past two Junes, however.

“We didn’t do that last year, and we don’t do that this year,” Scoles said.

“There’s a chance graduation will stay where it is,” he added.