ROCKVILLE, Md. — When the forecast calls for snow, officials in Montgomery County are left with an expensive decision — whether to close schools for the day.
The state of Maryland requires schools to have 180 days of class, which means too many closures will require makeup days. Each makeup day costs the school system $750,000.
“We do the best job we can in terms of making a good decision,” said Larry Bowers, interim superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools.
He said most decisions to delay openings, or close schools altogether, are made by 5 a.m. that day. If kids are going to be released early, that decision is usually released at 1 p.m. Both decisions come after examining weather forecasts and talking to people from local and state governments and other school districts.
Also, the decision takes into account feedback from MCPS employees who drive to the schools to get an idea of the road conditions.
Todd Watkins, the director of transportation for Montgomery County Public Schools, said sometimes the school system even checks in with school districts hundreds of miles away, where the storm is due to hit first. That call can help the system decide whether the storm is staying on its current path.
Watkins said they know making a decision to cancel classes can have a significant impact on the 154,000 students in the district and their families.
“There is no glory in it. The best you can do is make a decision where you get no comments. Then it goes downhill from there,” Watkins said.
Sometimes, a decision can be made the night before. That usually happens when there’s already a decent amount of snow on the ground at night.
When to reopen is always a challenge, he says. Schools must be cleared of snow before students can return, and the time for cleanup can vary from up to 10 hours for four inches of snow, up to 24 hours for 10 inches.
After Saturday’s snowfall, crews spent 16 hours cleaning the parking lots of the county’s schools.
With a county that encompasses 507 miles, conditions often vary greatly from one area to the next. Some have called for school zones, which would allow students in hard-hit areas to stay home while those in areas with better conditions would go to school. The trouble with that idea is that kids in certain programs, such as special education and magnet programs, don’t always go to the school closest to their home.
“We have looked at it; it’s just a nightmare to think about anything else other than one county-wide decision based on the worst conditions in the county,” Watkins said.
