Snow Day

My neighbor boy Brandon Gregory clears my drive.

I woke up on a Thursday morning and it was sunnier than it had been before on previous school days. Walking into the living room, I noticed her watching television and drinking her morning coffee. No, it was not my wife, but my mother, the late Alice Bowers, and I was a second grade student at Miller Park Elementary on January 26, 1967.

Before I could inquire of the circumstances, my mother explained, "No school because of the snow." I didn't understand this; they had never done this before in my years of attending R-7 schools.

"The buses can't get out and they called off school. Go back to bed or fix a bowl of cereal and enjoy your day off." As many in my neighborhood did, I bundled up and was sliding down our dead-end street that sloped down from our house. What a day!

Fifteen years and as my memory serves me, not that many snow days later ("If Dr. Campbell can see out of his second floor window, R-7 is going to have school!" I often heard my mother say.) I woke up in that same bedroom, noticeably colder than normal, to a phone call. This time I was not a student, but a teacher. It was my principal from Grain Valley calling to say there was no school that day. Seeing no snow on the ground, I asked him why it was called off and he explained due to the severe cold. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, like many times in my childhood, I enjoyed the unexpected day off.

Through the years, I would always hear reasons that school was called off for snow or severe cold. I can remember times I would receive the call just as I was leaving the house. I remember going to bed anticipating a snow day only to wake up to nothing on the ground and having to go to school. It wasn't until I was retired and forced to spend my snow day with several restless kids that I wanted to get the facts. I am fortunate that I don't have to find child care at the last minute, but I am sympathetic with friends who do.

Linda Thompson, Director of Transportation Services for the R-7 School District, explained to me, "The district is responsible for transporting 12,500 students to and from school each day, another 5000 either walk or have their parents bring them."

"These students are transported 12,000 miles daily over the streets of not only Lee's Summit, but Greenwood, Lake Winnebago, Lake Lotawana and Kansas City, including many rural one-lane county roads."

Thompson explained that she gets up at 3 a.m. in her Pleasant Hill home and drives to Lee's Summit to check many of the bus routes before making her report to Dr. Tom Kurucz, Deputy Superintendent for Operations. This dispels the rumor that previously Dr. Campbell and now Dr. David McGehee, looks out their window from the warmth of their bed to make the call.

I asked Thompson about the times that school is called off for severe cold or when a storm is anticipated. "In a perfect world, we like to wait until there is snow coming down before making the decision. However there are many factors that are considered when calling off in anticipation of a storm. We like to let parents know ahead of time so they can make plans, but sometimes we end up calling off and nothing happens." In the case of severe cold, "There is no temperature benchmark. Student safety is first and foremost. When you are running diesel buses, you don't want kids waiting on a cold bus or at a bus stop for a replacement bus."

Dr. McGehee stresses that, "We like to make a decision by 5:30 a.m., but Mother Nature does not always cooperate. We do consult with area schools to be sure we are not missing information they are getting, or that they are not missing information we have."

Unlike my childhood, I now have a driveway that slopes toward my house and before my kids or I get anywhere to enjoy this snow day, I need to go sweet talk the neighbor boy into clearing my driveway. I hope you are hanging in there during this lovely winter weather that we are experiencing.