From first flake to final call: the steps to calling a snow day

Katie Samol | The Chronicle

Photo contributed by Angela Engen The Mason City Schools bus lot covered in snow after the January 6 winter storm.

For some students, there is nothing better than the surprise of a snow day. It is a quick break from the reality of school, a day to ease the stress and feel like a little kid again. But what happens between the first flake falling and the highly anticipated snow day text arriving?

Before a snow day is declared, every effort is put in to make roads and other conditions safe so Mason students are able to go to school. The first on the job when there is snow in the forecast is the City of Mason’s Public Works Department. Ryan Tyree, the Public Works Director for the City of Mason, helps his crew in preparing as best they can when the radar is looking risky.

“We watch the weather and do everything we can to try to be ahead of the storm, to hopefully get some salt down before it starts snowing,” Tyree said. 

This was the procedure for the snow storm that rolled in the night before school started back after winter break on January 5. Since the Public Works Department knew it was coming, their trucks were ready to go, pre-filled with salt and liquids – either salt brine or a product called BeetHeet is used. These products help the salt to work more effectively.

The Public Works Department’s fleet of plow trucks head out when the snow begins and do not stop until the job is done. Their goal is black pavement exposed and snow cleaned off from curb to curb. That sometimes means 12-hour shifts for a period of multiple days. Their goal is to keep the main roads clear as long as possible, so their team typically focuses on those first during a severe weather event.

“We have 17 routes,” Tyree said. “Every time it snows, we have 17 trucks go out, and it takes us about two and a half hours to cover each route. If there’s heavy snow, that slows us down, but we can normally make a full trip in that amount of time. Once we know it’s coming, we start and we don’t stop until it’s done.”

With every effort having been made by the road services crew to clear the roads, the next step is decision making. There are many factors that Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Cooper considers before making the final call. Past experience has helped Cooper decide when to send out the ultimate announcement. 

“In the past, we would wait until the morning to make the call,” Cooper said. “I have learned a lot in my experience and time here and I have four kids [myself], so I have found that if I can be pretty certain on the call the night before, families appreciate it.”

While Cooper has made an effort to move to an evening-before call for planning and serving families well, weather is not always cooperative. When snow comes through the night and the call can not be made the night before, further action to assess safety is taken. Cooper; along with Chief Operations Officer Todd Petrey; Transportation, Safety and Attendance (TSA) Director Mark Murzanowski; and Building and Grounds Supervisor Jerry Pennington, heads out at about 4:00 a.m. to check on road conditions.

“We separate the district into four quadrants, and start driving those roads with our cars to see, ‘How does my car respond to this?’” Cooper said. “We make a final call typically by 5:00 a.m. or 5:30 a.m.”

Cooper said that during his first year as superintendent, he made a mistake in letting kids come to school. He drove the roads with the other administrators and they assessed that the roads were safe, and then got on social media to make a video announcement. Later that day, the weather took a bad turn and he regretted the call.

“I said, ‘Hey everybody, I drove the roads. It’s safe today. The kids are gonna be in school,’ and then all of a sudden, everything turned to ice,” Cooper said. “Kids and buses were all on their way, and the ice – I just did not predict that. We got that wrong, and we had branches breaking in neighborhoods. It was an ice storm and it was not good. I remember that clearly, because that was like, ‘Oh, geez, that was the wrong call.’”

After this experience, Cooper takes ice into consideration more when considering a snow day and analyzing weather data points. Cooper took a meteorology course in college, so he has an understanding of how different weather data points like air temperature, ground temperature, wind chill, the cloud cover and the relative humidity play into weather consideration. Although situations like this are unpredictable, he watches the National Weather Service page closely when administration is getting ready to make a decision.

Safety is the number one priority in this situation, and road conditions must be evaluated based on the demographic of drivers getting themselves to and from school. Murzanowski explained that main roads are not usually the problem, but rather the subdivisions and smaller roads that do not garner as much attention. Students who may be exposed to the cold for longer, like those who wait at neighborhood bus stops, must also be considered.

“You ask yourself the question, ‘How do we ensure safety for each and every student?’” Cooper said. “When I say ‘each and every,’ it’s not just high school kids getting to school, but it’s your first time drivers that just got their license, it’s your kids with special needs that may take longer to get on a lift up on the bus so they’re gonna be exposed to the elements more.”

Murzanowski said that as a transportation department navigating snow, buses are not the main concern and are generally safe due to their size and the drivers’ experience. As a matter of fact, according to Murzanowski, the school bus is about the safest place to be in regards to getting to school on a snowy day. Therefore, concerns in severe weather are focused on bus drivers and school staff members who drive into Mason from other districts. Due to these commutes, the weather and road conditions in the surrounding districts must be looked at as well before making a final call. 

Aside from road safety, there are many other components that must be considered before telling students and staff to stay home. Resources and cost-effectiveness must be factored into snow-day decision making. The economic impact of preparing schools to be open and cleared must be balanced with the money lost when staff stay home and do not perform their typical job. To clear all of the Mason City Schools parking lots and sidewalks once, it costs $15,000 to $20,000. 

The City of Mason Public Works department does not have the resources to keep up with snow that is not common for our region. The snow storm that rolled in January 6, amounting to eight to twelve inches and leading to two snow days, was an usual circumstance that required backup resources. 

“We had to hire three different companies because we had so much snow,” Cooper said. “We had two companies who were going to help us, plus our own people, and there was so much snow that we had to hire a third company just to move [the snow].”

Cooper even considered hiring a company to ship the snow out if it kept falling because parking lots were running out of space. Situations such as this require flexibility and quick decision making as weather is unpredictable. The cost of clearing snow also has to be weighed.

“[The] second factor that I will pay attention to is, do we have the resources to actually sustain this?” Cooper said. “It costs a lot of money to clear a [parking] lot, and if it’s snowing [a lot], you’re clearing them multiple times. You’re thinking about your resources financially, and you’re thinking, ‘Do I have enough people to clear all of the sidewalks consistently, not just one time, so that we can keep the place open?’”

Keeping all Mason staff home and away from their typical jobs at school costs Mason City Schools between $400,000 to $500,000 per day. Mason City Schools are funded primarily by taxpayer dollars, and Mason citizens do not want their money wasted.

“When you send your whole staff home, that’s about half a million dollars a day,” Cooper said. “They’re home, and they’re probably planning, grading, catching up, which is great, but it’s not what they’re paid to do.”

Part of Mason City Schools’ money comes from the state of Ohio, but the majority of it comes from Mason property taxes. There are community members that understand the cost of a snow day and the district has a responsibility to be good stewards of this money.

“You have to understand the nuance of [calling a snow day],” Cooper said. “You don’t want to take that lightly because it’s half a million dollars a day, and it’s taxpayer dollars. You want to have a good process and plan for calling it.”

To avoid the situation in which one school holds classes amidst the others’ cancellations, districts in the area are in constant communication with one another. This factor played a vital role on January 10, when a snow day was called even though no flakes fell until the early afternoon. 

“I [was] analyzing the meteorology data and saying, ‘It’s not going to come till three. We can do this. We can do an early dismissal,’” Cooper said. “That was my plan. All of my colleagues in the entire area closed schools. All of Warren County, all other counties, all [of] the GMC, I was the last one open. It’s not good to be the only one [still open] because if something doesn’t go well, there’s a little bit of, ‘What were you thinking?’ Even though the data was clear.”

As Cooper explained how districts remain in contact in real time for snow day decision making, he pulled out his phone and tapped on a pinned Messages group chat with the GMC logo as the group chat image. Cooper has group chats with every GMC superintendent, every Warren County Superintendent, as well as one with smaller schools nearby. 

“I’ve got all those group chats going on, and then I’ve got another one with the small schools around here like Indian Hill [and] Marymont,” Cooper said. “Because of who we are and how big we are, we’re a linchpin in all of that. They always want to know what we’re going to do, because if we don’t, it makes everybody else look bad.”

If all of these factors have been taken into account, and Cooper and the three other administrators have driven the district and assessed that the roads are safe, the transportation department is next to take action. TSA Director Mike Murzanowski manages the Mason City Schools bus garage. Every day, bus drivers must do a pre-trip inspection of their bus to make sure all elements are safe before they head out. 

The transportation department has found that a pre-trip bus inspection is not enough to prepare buses for harsh weather, however. Their bus warming crew has expanded from about four people to about 16 since 2020 to ensure the functionality of the buses.  

“There’s approximately 15 to 17 drivers that come in early, between 5:00 a.m. and 5:15 a.m., and they go and start all the buses,” Murzanowski said. “It gives us two fold: it gets them warmed up and ready, and it identifies if we have a bus that’s not starting.”

Across all departments–public services, transportation and administration–the message is clear: safety is the number one priority. If the safety of Mason students and staff cannot be guaranteed, the risk of opening the schools will not be taken. 

After this consensus is reached, the final step in calling a snow day is communication. Cooper gets on a group call with the operations directors and communication department as well as Tracy Carson, Mason City Schools’ Public Information officer. He lets them know the plan and tells them to get all the social media ready as well as the text message. All messaging is then sent out to parents and staff across the district. 

“At the end of the day, it’s all about safety,” Cooper said.“If I can’t get kids in [to school] safely, I’m not going to take a risk.”