re: Southeast Severe Weather: January 8-9, 2024

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Why are all of these SELA schools/districts canceling school when the worst weather isn't even supposed to through there until tomorrow night?

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I’m a school administrator, closing school really doesn’t have anything to do with danger from weather. It has to do with students being stranded at school because of flooding, lack of power etc. which can lead to a lack of food, water etc. and having a 30:1 or more adult to student ratio and doing the supervision of that without resources. Try dealing with hungry kids at 5:00 p.m. and then later into the evening. The nervous parents trying to get to their kids in flood waters leads to dangers for the emergency people. These lessons were learned years ago with many of the floods that used to catch us off guard. Add to that an after school situation where even less adults might be on campus with kids and it gets real sketchy quick. I personally was caught in that scenario once and while I was fine it wasn’t good for the kids at all. Also, you have staff that may have their own kids, sick family members etc. The school thing is just a completely different animal. My frustration is that what I just explained is rarely communicated.

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