LANSING -- Snow is falling for the third time this week in Lansing and one lawmaker is once again considering expanding the amount of snow days Michigan school districts may take.

Rep. Phil Potvin, R-Cadillac, introduced a House Bill 4157 Wednesday to increase the allowable amount of snow days from six days per year to nine per year.

Currently, state law allows six snow days per year and requires 180 days of school each year. If school districts don't complete the minimum amount of instruction time, they can lose out on some state funding.

In 2014, Potvin proposed allowing school districts to extend their school day to make up for extra snow days taken. That bill didn't get any real traction in the Legislature and never became law, so Potvin came back this year with a new proposal.

"The most important piece of this is safety," he said in an interview with MLive Wednesday. "Not only student safety, but driver safety and parent safety."

There have been previous one-year fixes to school districts taking additional snow days. In the 2012-13 school year, a one-year law allowed school districts to either extend their days or extend their school year in order to make sure they got funding from the state of Michigan.

This bill proposed by Potvin would be a permanent resolution and not a one-year fix.

Rep. Phil Potvin, R-Cadillac

Potvin said it's important to him to make sure schools have flexibility because it works out best for all members of the school community.

"There are parents who want to take off on summer break and teachers who want to continue their education," he said in an interview posted on the House GOP website. "And, summer school starts for them almost immediately out of the gate in June."

He said if school districts were forced to cancel a number of school days for winter weather and not have the required amount of instruction time, "We'd find ourselves in the middle of June and let's hope not going to school on the Fourth of July."

Some school districts around the state needed two snow days to start the week due to the massive winter storm that hit the state on Sunday night.

Potvin said his own home district in Cadillac canceled school on Monday, despite not getting hit by the winter storm nearly as hard as parts of the southern Lower Peninsula.

He hopes to get the bill into a law by the end of the school year.

"By getting both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor, I'm hopeful that we'll be moving forward in a very positive, very quick way," he said.

Kyle Feldscher is the Capitol education and MSU reporter for MLive Media Group. Reach him via email at kylefeldscher@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter at @Kyle_Feldscher. Read more stories here.