In accordance with state law, our Board policy on emergency closures requires schools to “remain open, if possible, on all scheduled school days” and to only close schools in the event of extreme or hazardous weather, facility failures, or other emergencies that may threaten the safety or health of students and staff.” The decision on when schools should close is rarely easy to determine.

Some families love school closures and getting the chance to keep children home for a day off. But for other families school closures create significant hardships with parental commitments to work and a lack of child care. Some families depend on the meals that students get at school, and for some, those may be the only meals they have to eat in a day. For those reasons, we never take the decision to cancel school lightly. 

There are typically two weather conditions that create the need to close school. The first condition is a blizzard with drifting snow that makes roads impassable for vehicles. The second are dangerously low temperatures. We usually do not consider closing schools unless the temperature drops below -20 °F. Each morning that we experience inclement weather, several district employees begin driving roads by 5 am to evaluate their conditions and the relative temperatures across the district. At 5:30 am, we will conference call to review the weather conditions and make the decision whether to close school or to delay the start of school by two hours. Messages to parents and staff should be sent through PowerSchool starting at 6 am. School closures announcements will also be sent to media outlets and posted on the District's Facebook page.