The Munising Public Schools will head to Spring Break early, as a number of families are heading downstate to support the Mustangs.

According to a post by Munising Superintendent Mike Travis, both Mather Elementary and the middle/ high school are already facing attendance issues even before plans drastically changed late Tuesday night.

“The current situation is that we have many students and families already gone for spring break and reports are that most buses are only at 50 percent ridership today. If our attendance numbers drop even more as an out flux of students leave to attend the game(s), we risk not meeting the 75 percent attendance threshold for full daily foundation payment from the state tomorrow, and especially on Friday,” Travis wrote. “Combine that with the fact that we already have several teachers and key staff members scheduled to be absent from the district tomorrow and/or Friday for non-athletic related reasons and a deficit of substitutes, the loss of any additional staff members due to sickness over the next two days would only exacerbate our ability to staff classrooms with certified adults.”

According to Travis, the school year will have to be extended by one day, with the new final day on June 9, 2023. Travis wrote in the statement that he had “broad” support from the Munising Public Schools Board of Education and from teacher and support staff unions.

In addition to the boys basketball team traveling to East Lansing, Munising was losing another student athlete in Piper Grabowski. She will be heading to Irvine, Cali. to compete with the Kalkaska K-Stars in the 14U USA Hockey National Championship this weekend. Families have also left early, or planned on leaving earlier, for Spring Break vacations regardless of athletics.