According to the SVVSD website, “[you are] empowered to close the schools or to dismiss them early in the event of hazardous weather or other emergencies which threaten the safety, health or welfare of students or staff members.”

I’m not sure this even means anything.

On the search to find the legitimacy of why — in below freezing weather and poor road conditions — SVVSD students still went to school, the only official document addressing this issue states that. It appears that the line between “hazardous weather” and weather permissible to attend school it is up to your discretion, provided that you consult “with appropriate authorities,” as clear is that is.

This is not to question your discretion. Your experience and information may have indicated to you that the weather wasn’t that bad. But students and parents have no way of knowing why a school may or may not be canceled.

I can only speak from personal experience, but the roads my brother and I took to Mead High School were certainly questionable.

Not to mention the other high-schoolers, less experienced than him, who have to drive to be at school by 7:15 in the morning, one of the earliest starting times in the district no less, in adverse conditions.

And concern for instructional hours isn’t really a valid argument. If school would have been canceled today, on February the 20th, that would have been the 1st snow day of the school year and wouldn’t have prevented us from reaching the quota of instructional hours.

What is the incentive? When did students and teachers health usurp the number of instructional hours students get? Even a delay would have greatly improved the situation.

Policy shouldn’t be created in pursuit of an abstract ideal. They should be created to be the most effective for a given community because they ultimately define a large part of the lives of the students in your district. Vague rules and decisions based on unclear information don’t do these kids justice. 

Best Regards, Blake LaVanchy of MHS’s The Mav