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School officials must make tough decisions

By Sarah Newell Williamson | Hickory Daily Record

Published: March 2, 2009

HICKORY - When it's snowing outside, children rejoice.

School officials, however, have to make a tough decision. Should school be canceled the following day? Delayed? Or is it safe for buses to pick up students, and for teens and staff to drive to school?

These are questions superintendents must answer every time the forecast calls for wintry weather.

When the forecasters predict snow, they get up as early as 3 a.m. to check the roads throughout Catawba County.

"I ride the roads, and check with my eyes, feet and hands," said Barry Redmond, superintendent for Newton-Conover City Schools. "I look at any roads with bridges or shaded areas and any back roads."

Catawba County Community Schools Director Jim Sprinkle also drives around the area, looking at roads.

Redmond said he inspects roads that buses use as turnaround areas to see if they might have a problem with snow or ice.

Redmond also talks to other area superintendents. This includes neighboring counties, as well as Tim Markley, superintendent of Catawba County Schools, and Ric Vandett, superintendent of Hickory Public Schools.

Vandett said he, too, rides the roads. He's responsible for looking at the roads in the Hickory area. He said some of the roads that are consistently problematic in bad weather are Fifth Street, NE, in Huntington Hills and Huffman Cove Road, because they have hills and are shaded. Vandett said he takes extra care looking at these roads, when making his determination to cancel or delay school.

"If the weather's really bad, it won't take me more than 20 or 30 minutes to decide," he said. "But if it's like it is today (Monday), I'll take several hours, to really check things out and drive around to look at a lot of areas."

Catawba County Schools has a team of six people who drive the roads, including Steve Demiter, assistant superintendent of operations, Joey Franklin, maintenance, Chucky Houston, transportation, Ken Weaver, director of student safety, Cecil Davis, director of transportation and Markley. It takes so many people because the district spans from Sherrills Ford to Banoak to the St. Stephens area.

After they've driven around their section of the county, they return the Catawba County Schools' central office in Newton to talk about the roads.

Superintendents look at other factors, as well. Vandett said closing school Monday was "a piece of cake," because it snowed early and hard on Sunday. It's not always so easy to make the decision.

School officials look at all the weather reports — just about anything reliable they can read or see, including TV weather reports, www.weather.com, www.intellicast.com and a forecast from Duke Power that's e-mailed to them.

Redmond said he also talks to police officials.

"I talk to the police department, to see what they're getting on their scanners, if they've heard anything different," he said.

If the decision is being made in the afternoon or evening, the superintendents of Catawba County Schools, Hickory Public Schools and Newton-Conover City Schools will usually gather in the late afternoon or early evening to discuss what the others think, Redmond said.

If school officials have to decide in the morning what will be done about weather delays, the decision usually must be made by about 6 a.m., although Redmond said ideally it should be made by 5 a.m.

"We try to make a call by 5 a.m., so it can get out on the 5:30 a.m. news, but we can't wait to decide past 6 a.m., because then the buses need to be going," he said.

Hickory Public Schools and Newton-Conover City Schools are on a two-hour delay today. Catawba County Schools are closed today. It's an optional teacher workday for staff.