Inclement weather days have long been part of the culture in the Midwest. The messages that schools are delaying the start to a day, releasing early, or cancelling have been shared for generations by radio and television stations throughout the region. In recent years, automated calls, emails, text messages, and social media have been added to the mix to help us inform families and the community that school hours will be altered in some way.
Part of my job as the District Administrator is determining whether or not school is in session. While there seems to be a mystical quality to this decision-making according to some people; the standards that I, and many of my peers in other districts, use to make these decisions are fairly universal.
The primary concern involves getting students and staff to and from school. Even though our district is not large geographically, we do have some rural geography that makes some of our roads fairly treacherous in inclement weather. We consult the bus company and we drive on district roads ourselves to assist in making this decision. We also need to consider that many of our students walk to school. We have to make sure conditions are safe for foot traffic to and from school when making these decisions.
Cold weather, and wind chills, are probably the easiest conditions for which to anticipate and plan. In the School District of Monroe, we use a 30 degree below zero wind chill as our general guideline for cancelling, delaying or dismissing school. The tough part with wind chills, and temperatures in general, are that they change throughout the course of the day. Sometimes the wind chills will be much lower at the beginning or end of the day than in the midday hours. In those cases, a late start or early dismissal may be considered. It could be argued that a minus 26 wind chill is as dangerous as a minus 33 wind chill; that argument probably holds some merit. However, this is Wisconsin. We should be prepared for cold weather, and we have to set a threshold that we feel makes sense.
Snow and ice present entirely more uncertainty. In these conditions, whether or not we have school really comes down to road conditions and our ability to plow and salt our parking lots, sidewalks and building entries. The amount of snow (or ice) often isn’t as important as the timing (when it falls), and how long the county, city, and townships have had to attend to the roads. When we are uncertain, we tend to err on the side of caution because the safety of our students and staff is our number one concern.
People often ask if district leaders collude with one another in making these decisions. The answer is that we absolutely do. Even though conditions may vary from district to district, we do know that the general public, and families, will use decisions made by neighboring districts to evaluate the decisions we make and we do discuss these decisions in a regional manner. It is extremely rare that I do not text, call, or email the leaders from Juda, Monticello, Brodhead, Black Hawk and Albany when we are considering cancelling, delaying or dismissing due to inclement weather. We feel a sense of collective responsibility to support the needs of all students and families in our region and work together to keep everyone safe.
Up until a few years ago, school districts built a certain number of “snow” days into their school calendar and then had to add days at the end of the year to make up for lost instructional time. Now, we can make the time up in any way as long as there are 1,050 hours of instruction for grades 1 through 6 and 1,137 hours of instruction for grades 7 through 12. As a result, the School District of Monroe will likely be adding time to school days later this year so that we can meet the required hours of instruction and still end the school year on the same date.
It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that people sometimes disagree with our decisions. We try to make decisions by 6 a.m. on school days and we also try to provide three hours notice when we early release. However, the fact of the matter is that unanticipated changes are a stress to everyone’s life and people will call, or email complaints, or post their displeasure on social media. While I try not to take these complaints personally, I realize that every family has their own unique logistics to navigating each day and it is impossible to make decisions that everybody can agree on.
Our number one priority is keeping people safe as they travel to and from school. I would rather err on the side of caution, even if we have to extend school days or even add a day under extreme circumstances. While these decisions are not easy, I can assure you they are made with great thought and planning. Stay warm, be careful removing snow and GO CHEESEMAKERS!!
— Rick Waski is the district administrator for the School District of Monroe. He can be reached at 608-328-7109 or rickwaski@monroe.k12.wi.us.
