Two words pop into every student’s head when they wake up to see a veritable winter wonderland in the making: no school. But it is important to remember why school is cancelled in the first place because of winter weather; when road conditions put the safety of students and faculty into question. As is always the case when there is snow on the ground, the administration should play it safe and cancel or delay the start of school.
The district’s website outlines their own protocol regarding inclement weather. For a storm system that might come through during the evening hours and into the morning, there are two options: call a 2-hour delay or cancel school. In this case, neither happened.
From the point of view of the red building, starting school with no delay made perfect sense; while snow was coming down rather heavily (in Texas terms, at least), it was not sticking to the roads, seemingly leaving the roads unaffected.
But nobody lives in the red building. Just ask teachers, who live in areas ranging from Bonham to northern McKinney and even further. Some, such as yearbook advisor Mary Woodruff, woke up to two inches of snow on her yard and a frozen driveway and was unable to make her commute to work. Two inches of snow is barely enough for a half-decent snowball fight, but it is enough to put student and faculty safety in jeopardy especially since local municipalities are not properly equipped to deal with snow.
That being said, it is unrealistic for the district to receive up-to-the-minute updates on road conditions from all over North Texas (or even each neighborhood that comprise the district). But it is equally unrealistic to believe the road conditions in front of the school or administration building represent the entire area.
With weather conditions that walk the line between having school and a two-hour delay, such as what happened this morning, the district should always avoid risking the well-being of students and faculty and err on the side of delaying school. A two-hour delay takes an average of eight minutes from each class period, more than enough time to have class and still be productive. And the administration would be saved the headache of calling in last-minute subs for the teachers that were unable to arrive at school on time.
By not instituting a two-hour delay, the district recklessly ignored their own policy and potentially risked the safety of students and their own employees. Although nobody will be rushing home after school today to build a snowman in their backyard, erring on the side of safety is always the common-sense option.
