Cold only one factor in school closure decisions
School superintendents say they considered more than just the record cold Thursday when they decided whether to hold classes.
Despite the frigid temperatures, which bottomed out at an official -8, superintendents in Naperville Unit District 203, Indian Prairie Unit District 204 and Glenbard High School District 87 said they decided to remain open after considering the availability of bus transportation, the condition of their facilities and the safety of students and faculty.
"We made the judgment call that we could stay open," District 87 Superintendent David Larson said. "And it looks like it was the right call."
Elsewhere, though, superintendents such as Elgin Unit District U-46's Tony Sanders decided to cancel classes because wind chills were predicted between -25 and -30 about 6:30 a.m., when high school students would be walking up to 1½ miles to school or their bus stop.
"I made the decision to close for student safety," Sanders said. "You're never going to make everyone happy with whatever decision you make."
This was the fifth time this winter U-46 has canceled school, using all of the "emergency days" at the end of its calendar. School in U-46 now is scheduled to end June 2 and Sanders said he is checking with the state board of education about what would happen if the district cancels school again.
But superintendents said previous closures and whether a district has used all of the "emergency days" in its calendar are not among the elements they consider when it comes to potentially dangerous weather.
Indian Prairie closed twice in January because of dangerous cold, Superintendent Karen Sullivan said, but the number of lost days is "really never a factor" in the decision-making process.
"In this case," she said, "what we were looking at was the really cold temperatures were overnight and it was moving up toward the opening of school into ranges that we felt comfortable in, that we've held school in before."
District 203 Superintendent Dan Bridges said he relies on National Weather Service guidelines about how long it will take frostbite to set in at certain temperature and wind conditions. Because Thursday's predicted frostbite time was longer than it would take students to wait for a bus or walk to school, he kept schools open.
Nevertheless, some parents in District 204, which covers parts of Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield, said they want more consistency in weather-related school cancellations, which they said haven't mirrored temperatures.
"It wasn't this cold when they closed school the last time, so what made the difference today that they decided not to?" District 204 parent Alexis Moore of Aurora said Thursday, when the National Weather Service recorded a low of -10 at 5:49 a.m. in Naperville. "It's a stupid decision by this district to keep the school open when it's colder than it was when they closed it before."
When District 204 and others canceled school Jan. 7 and 8, low temperatures in Naperville were recorded at -9 both days. The temperature on Jan. 7 reached a high of 7 degrees and Jan. 8 hit a high of 19, according to AccuWeather. A high temperature of 5 was forecast for Thursday.
"I think it worked out fine that school was open," District 204 parent Emily Wilhite of Naperville said. "What frustrates me is feeling that it was totally arbitrary."
Sullivan and Bridges said forecasts for both days they closed school in January called for colder temperatures than actually materialized.
The suburbs might not be out of the winter weather woods just yet, said Bill Nelson, a National Weather Center meteorologist in Romeoville. Warmer than average water in the Gulf of Alaska is pushing a blast of cold air south into the Midwest and Northeast, he said, and the trend is expected to continue.
"This pattern looks like it may hold for another month with your occasional warm-ups into the 20s and 30s but then going back down into the single digits to teens for highs," Nelson said.
Daily Herald staff writer Safiya Merchant contributed to this report