Just after 8 p.m., School District #83 officials made the decision to close all schools for a second day in a row on Tuesday, Jan. 6.
“Due to further snowfall accumulations, the continued winter storm warning from Environment Canada including a forecast of freezing rain in the morning hours, we are announcing that district schools will be closed again on Tuesday,” states Superintendent Glenn Borthistle.
“District education staff are not expected to be in attendance at school on Tuesday. Operations and custodial staff activities will be provided instruction for the day from the Operations department,” he added.
This will be the second day the schools will be closed, but notification came much earlier than Monday morning, when, after announcing schools were open, the school district reversed the decision at 7:42 a.m. Monday, while many students were already en route to schools.
Borthistle offered apologies and an explanation to parents in a statement earlier Monday.
“I wanted to give you a quick update why the decision to close the schools wasn’t made until the time it was, and, while we regret that the decision was made relatively late in the morning – and this may have inconvenienced students, parents, and our staff – we are also proud of the fact that we make every reasonable effort to keep schools open. The safety of students and staff is always our highest priority but we also place a high value on student learning and so making a decision to close school is made with both of these factors in mind.”
He said before 6 a.m. this morning none of the roads were closed and our buses could operate safely, so the decision was made to operate schools.
“However, once Principals began arriving at schools, they reported to me that parking lots were not clear at a number of schools and staff were calling in to say they were having difficulty making it to work. We made the call at 7:42 a.m. to close schools.”
The reaction on social media to the announcement of the cancellation was overwhelmingly positive, with many parents appreciative of the decision to keep children, parents and staff off the increasingly treacherous, and snow-clogged roads in the Shuswap.
