What Goes Into Deciding School Closures This Winter

COLD SPRING (WJON News) -- With Minnesota winters come cold weather, snow, school closures, and students and parents having to adjust their schedules. ROCORI Area Schools Superintendent Kevin Enerson says a lot of factors, like transportation, visibility, temperature, and more, can factor into their decision on whether to dismiss early, start late, or close for the day.

How do they make the decision?

Enerson says they are in constant contact with the National Weather Service and other school districts before making any determination on what to do:

"It is nice to kind of look at what is everybody else doing, and if everybody else is closing, you're kind of left with I can't, sometimes your hand gets forced, and everybody's factors are a little bit different, some have more rural routes and some have those things."

He says they have a really good relationship with the National Weather Service, and information and training from it play a large part in any decision:

"They've actually been having some very pointed and directed conversations with school leaders and giving us webinars and taking us through the weather system and the timeing of things, and their models and their stuff has been pretty good so when does it start snowing, when does it raining, when to the winds pick up, what is the temperture, and they help us through that so that you can try to stay ahead of it."

Enerson says, regardless of the school's decision, parents can keep their child home if they feel it is not safe, and that is an excused absence and doesn't go against the student's record.

READ MORE FROM AUTHOR PAUL HABSTRITT