Weather Update - November 26, 2023
Greenback Family,
With the winter weather upon us I want to give some insight into our decision-making process for delays
and cancellations. First, we do understand the hardship on some parents when we make a decision to
delay the start of school or cancel for the day. Maintaining a consistent start time and an open school
offers some safety benefits, especially for our younger learners, that we balance against road
conditions.
To assess current conditions, we drive our roads and communicate with other neighboring school
districts. We refer to NOAA, Weather.com, and WeatherBug for up-to-date weather forecasts. Weather
forecasting, of course, is notoriously inconsistent, especially with the timing of bad weather. We will also
be a bit more conservative early in the season when drivers are acclimating to less than ideal driving
conditions.
We will sometimes announce a 1-hour or 2-hour delay for the next morning when poor road conditions
are forecasted in order to give us additional time for assessment and preparation while also giving some
predictability for parents. The trick is to not use the delay and push the morning commute into
worsening conditions--that is a tough call sometimes. When we issue a morning delay 10 hours or more
in advance, there is always the possibility that the morning assessment will lead to an extension of the
delay or a cancellation for the day. For any school delay or cancellation, we will issue a school
messenger text/call first. Second, we will call it into KAKE and KWCH. Finally, as always, safety is most
important, and we trust our parents to make decisions on these types of mornings if the conditions in
your area are more severe than what we saw in our early morning scout.
Respectfully,
Tony Helfrich
Superintendent
Pratt Schools USD 382