South Lake Tahoe snow days: Love 'em or hate 'em

Snow Days. Kids love 'em, parents maybe not so much.

Last week's five snow days, and a lack of one this week caused some parents to raise concern with how the Lake Tahoe Unified School (LTUSD) decides when to close school for the day.

Closing school is always a tough call for school superintendents across the country, so what is the science behind closing schools when it snows in the Lake Tahoe Unified School District?

The decision often requires hours of preparation and discussion among administrators, local officials, road crews and meteorologists. The closure of schools for a day is the ultimate decision of LTUSD Superintendent Dr. James Tarwater after conferring with the Transportation Supervisor and Director of Maintenance and Operations.

Before making their decision they look at many factors:

1) The snow removal team’s ability to clear school site parking lots
2) The ability of buses to have safe ingress and egress at the school sites
3) Ability for buses to maneuver on primary and secondary roadways
4) The preparation of the buses (“chaining up”) for the safe pick up and transport students; visibility for the bus drivers
5) Visibility for the bus drivers
6) Enough advanced warning by weather radar to prepare for the snowfall

If there is enough advance knowledge of snow, the LTUSD bus drivers will chain up the day before, with the expectation that school will be open the next day according to Shannon Chandler, Public Information Officer for LTUSD.

The District closely monitors storms by radar as they move in. It also checks to see what other school districts are doing (like Tahoe Truckee).

"The biggest factor for a school closure is when the snowfall is more than can be handled by our snow removal teams," said Chandler. "Normally they can handle about one foot of snowfall in a given day."

The look to the weather reports to see if there is going to be a big snow dump during the night and ask themselves two questions: Is it enough to affect the snow removal teams’ ability to clear up the school sites parking lots and playgrounds prior to the start of school? Are the City and County able to clear their roadways?

"The District’s snow removal crews have been doing a phenomenal job keeping up with the heavy snow and flooding conditions," said Chandler.

As well, the District has received tremendous support with snow and water removal needs from community members including Mike Wallace, Robert Haen, Ron Fuller, and Alpine Smith according to Chandler.

The bus routes are driven by 4:45 a.m. to check conditions. The decision team will then take those results and evaluate what the rest of the day is expected to bring and decide if school is canceled for a snow day.

Parents are then alerted by the District’s mass calling system which sends out approximately 5,000 phone calls in under ten minutes. The call is typically received by families between 5:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. unless a decision can be made earlier or the night before. The information is also posted on the LTUSD website, emailed and given to news outlets.

"We try to give parents as much notice as possible," said Chandler.

In the last couple of days, LTUSD's staff has been able to prepare for the incoming snowfall by clearing parking lots and playgrounds, therefore no snow days were used.

Any time there are more than three snow days in a given school year, the District applies for a waiver of the additional days from the California Department of Education, so that the District does not lose funding. If the waiver is not granted, the school year would be extended. With both the City of South Lake Tahoe and El Dorado County declaring a state of emergency, it would be easier for the District to be granted a waiver for the five snow days that resulted from last week's storm.

There have been some parents angry that school wasn't canceled Thursday and Friday due to snow. Each day there was only a few inches of snow forecast and roads and school grounds were clear enough to pass at 4:45 a.m.

Canceling school causes a lot of scheduling problems, and students miss out on instruction. Of course, safety is also a concern. If the storm doesn't meet the criteria Dr. Tarwater and his team have evaluated, school will be held.

Also with snow days, kids can go hungry as those on the free or reduced meal programs aren't provided the food they need. In South Lake Tahoe, 2300 of the District's 3951 students qualify for the meal program.