School Closing Policy

School emergency closings could happen at any time of the year. Parents need to arrange plans with their children (a neighbor, childcare, employer, etc.) on what is expected should an emergency closing occur. Decisionsfor closure, delayed start or todismiss school early are always a judgment call; however, we do use some general criteria in making such decisions. School procedures call for an emergency school closing announcement to be given over local radio and television media. Below are some of the criteria and examples of what would impact a decision to cancel school, delay start or dismiss school early.

Weather conditions and events are very unpredictable. We generally do not cancel school or dismiss school early solely on a weather forecast. Weather events must be occurring and deteriorating for school to be cancelled or for us to dismiss early.

Generally speaking, snow is not a primary reason for closing school. As long as roads are not drifting shut, it’s possible we would have school even with a sizable snowfall.

As referenced above, road conditions dictate many of our decisions. Due to the fact the district is widely spread out, we have an early morning process (before 5:00 a.m.) of checking our rural and cityroads.

We will look at wind chill and air temperature (also road conditions) when making a decision relating to cold weather. Please remember that we do live in central Illinois so below 0 degree weather is not uncommon.