Superintendent Message

WSD Family,

I have received questions around today's snow day decision that I wanted to take the opportunity to address. I can certainly appreciate frustration regarding an additional snow day on a day like today, especially if you live in areas or travel roads that seem fine.

There are many moving parts when it comes to determining a snow day or late start due to inclement weather.

Given the potential for re-freeze, I scheduled my snow team to drive different parts of the District starting at 4AM to be proactive and double check the roads. I had reports from all of our superintendents in Warren and Lincoln counties that the roads were very icy and many of them closed school last night. The rest of the Lincoln and Warren County districts closed this morning.

When we drove the roads, North Point Prairie, Dietrich Road, West Meyer, Hopewell Road, and Highway W, among others were issues today as our team drove the roads between 3:45-4:45AM. Our experienced team had difficulty staying on the road and making it up hills, even when in 4-wheel drive. The transportation department had concerns about buses being able to safely navigate these roads, and I am also concerned about our inexperienced high school drivers on icy roads. Out of an abundance of caution for our student and staff safety, I had to make the hard call today.

A late start was considered, but with road conditions as they were for some of the roads in the western part of the District, road temperatures, and air temperatures only projected to get up to 37 degrees by 8AM, it was unlikely that the roads in question would be significantly better at that time. We also noted that the western side of the District was cooler than the eastern side. The eastern side this morning was around 35 degrees, while it was 32 degrees on the western side, so those roads were not thawing as we would have hoped. In my professional opinion, a late start would not get us into a safe driving zone for secondary routes that would start around 8AM.

Here are a few updates that I have received recently:

* 8:30AM - Highway DD, hill next to Frontier Middle School is a sheet of ice, cars are having difficulty climbing the hill, a car is sliding down the hill sideways

* 9AM -- 3 accidents currently on Dietrich Road, the road has been closed

* Employees that live in the western part of the District have reported that they are iced in and cannot get out. Others who have tried to come into the office have had to turn around due to icy road conditions that are not safe for travel.

* Some schools in a neighboring District had buses arriving nearly two hours late due to road conditions and closures.

Currently, we have used four out of the six allotted snow days that are built into the WSD academic calendar without affecting the last day of school. Please stay tuned for more information later this week on alternative methods of instruction (AMI) opportunities for virtual learning after we use all six snow days.

I know snow day calls can be very frustrating. Please know that I take these decisions very seriously and use all information at my disposal to make the call. I hope this helps provide a little light on some of the considerations taken when determining if we need to close school for inclement weather, and I appreciate your flexibility in helping keep our students and staff safe.

Take care,

Sincerely,

Dr. Danielle Tormala

Superintendent of Schools