Wednesday, Dec. 07 2011 11:34AM

Making the difficult snow-day decision

By Dr. David McGehee

Guest Columnist

“Snow days” are two words that generate extremely mixed emotions among students, parents and even superintendents. For students, news of a snow day traditionally generates a joyful reaction. Parents tend to react with much less enthusiasm as they face concerns about day care and make-up days. Most superintendents, myself included, find that snow days often result in very difficult decisions, especially considering our often unpredictable winter weather.

We are occasionally asked exactly what temperature or wind chill level or precisely how many inches of snow it takes to turn a school day into a snow day. Since the snow-day decision is the result of a combination of factors, it is not possible to set specific guidelines. Whether or not we will have school during winter weather is based on student safety and takes road and walkway conditions, forecasts and extremes in temperature and wind chills into consideration. For example, a bitter wind chill combined with slick roadways might result in school cancellation when just one of these factors by itself might not necessitate a snow day.

The decision process often begins on our streets with R-7 Transportation Department employees driving on roads in various parts of our large 117-square-mile district. Although much of our district is within city limits, a significant portion is located in unincorporated county areas and includes a number of rural roads with more limited opportunities for snow removal. This sometimes means that our district may cancel school when a neighboring district with virtually all “city” roadways does not.

In addition to actually driving on the roads, we carefully monitor temperature, wind chill and forecasts while communicating with officials from neighboring districts to determine what may be coming our way. Sidewalks and parking lots are also an important factor, and we work closely with our Facilities Services staff to determine if our schools’ walkways can be cleared in time for safe passage by students, staff and visitors. This can be especially difficult during ice storms.

Although wintery weather and snow days can make life difficult for all of us, we have seen progress in recent years regarding snow-day notifications. Just a few years ago, families had just one option – turning to local media outlets – to learn about snow days. Although we still appreciate the job our media does when it comes to sharing the snow-day news, we have added a number of communication tools at the district level. These included recorded telephone calls that go to all families and employees, an electronic newsletter that goes to any interested subscriber, R-7 Facebook updates and our district information telephone line.

Like many of you, I am hoping for milder weather this winter than that of 2010-11 when we had a record-breaking number of snow days. Our annual average for snow days since 2000 totals around 4.5, which is considerably below the 2010-11 school year’s 10 days.

Whatever the weather, we continue to be grateful to have the opportunity to work with our community, our families and students. Thanks for all you do for the children!

David McGehee is Lee’s Summit R-7 School District superintendent and a Lee’s Summit resident.