How I delay or close school...

What goes into calling a 2 hour delay or school closing:
As I described in a November superintendent blog post (seen below), a lot goes into the decision to delay and/or close school. I wake up every morning at 3:45 AM from November to April 1st (give or take depending on the year and the weather patterns) and check on a number of factors that go into the final decision regarding whether or not I will have to delay two hours or close. Since our District is so large, geographically speaking, a one hour delay is pointless in the majority of cases. We (Transportation Supervisor, John Pierce, Director of Facilities, Paul Brissette, and myself) contact the highway crews who are in contact with the town supervisors, all the superintendents in Oswego County as well as some in Onondaga County as Brewerton is located in Onondaga County, our Director of Facilities and our Director of Transportation, who are in frequent contact with their counterparts throughout Oswego County. I also am watching numerous weather reports on television and on my computer at home in the very early hours. It is never a perfect science, but student and staff safety is always my top priority and I will never put them in jeopardy to save the five allotted emergency days that we have to draw from each year. The two snow days I called this year in November were a result of the highway crews informing us that a two hour delay was not enough to keep up with the constant snow fall. On the second snow day in November, it was reported by the Town of Hastings and Constantia that there were numerous trees down blocking many roads that were not passible. The heavy snow was weighing down trees on power lines causing thousands to go without power in the towns of Hastings and West Monroe. For today’s (Wednesday, January 23, 2019) snow day it was significantly different than the prior two, as this one was the result of multiple forecasts that predicted patches of intermitting rain that was supposed to hit the ground and freeze. I was watching the weather reports at 4 AM and all meteorologists were calling for freezing rain until 1 PM (however it is currently 2:15 pm and there is still freezing rain in many parts of our District). I called a 2 hour delay as many districts did to have more time to make this decision, but the forecasts were not improving and I have to make the decision to close schools (if that is the decision I will make) long before the 2 hour delay expires because we have bus drivers coming to the bus garage long before that to pick up students from all across the District to bring to PVM and CSMS, as they are the first bus runs each day. I did not cancel school on January 10, 2019 when it was snowing steadily in the morning because all of the reports we received from the towns’ crews and some town supervisors was that although there was steady snow, it was forecasted to stop, and it did. I did however call a two hour delay to get daylight to help improve visibility. All reports showed that we were good to open schools and we could safely transport students to and from school so we did. This past Tuesday, there were several people inquiring as to why we did not cancel school because of the wind chill temperatures, so please allow me to clarify that as well. School districts use anywhere between a -20’ wind chill to -25’ wind chill temperature as the threshold to close school. The Onondaga County Commissioner of Health recommends schools close when wind chill temperatures reach -20’. The coldest wind chill temperatures we experienced throughout all of our District never exceeded -9’ during the hours when students of any grade level would have been at their bus stops exposed to the elements. No one, including myself, is disputing the fact that it was cold out, as clearly it was, but in regards to closing due to the wind chill, we will close when it is in the high negative teens and colder depending on all factors considered. Please feel free to email me at any time at tcolabufo@cssd.org or call me at my office at 315 668-4220 extension 70221 and I will call you all back and answer any of your questions.

November Superintendent blog: https://cssdsuperintendent.blogspot.com/2018/11/

Here is the wind chill chart from the National Weather Service: