SAN ANTONIO – Students returned to school from winter break this week and were hit with cold temperatures.
Many school districts are taking extra precautions, alerting parents early in the week of a potential issue with the school day on Thursday.
KSAT wanted to know how school districts decide when to cancel or delay school during inclement weather days.
Shawn Bird, deputy superintendent for SAISD, said the district closely monitors its systems to ensure they are working properly.
The HVAC systems run 24 hours a day to keep the buildings warm. A team monitors precipitation and its potential impact on roadways.
“Starting this afternoon. We have an executive team meeting. We’ll talk about that, and then we’ll be monitoring the weather,” Bird said. “And if we do, there’s a time that we’ll make that decision that will be blasted out on social media and all through our communication channels that our schools have set up,” he said.
On Tuesday, students at Highlands High School arrived to cold classrooms. A district spokesperson said a mechanical issue with the building’s HVAC system caused the problem.
In a statement to KSAT on Monday evening, SAISD said its schools would be prepared for cold weather in the new year; however, the district was “working with a few schools on single classroom issues.”
It is unclear what the issues were or what schools were affected.
Northside ISD Superintendent John Craft says a lot goes into deciding to cancel classes for the district. It’s a conversation that involves the local districts and districts across the region.
“Northside being the largest not only school district, but also one of the largest employers here in the San Antonio region. We have to also be mindful of parents that are potentially trying to drop students off, but then commuting to work. And, of course, we want to be mindful of our emergency responders. We don’t want to put anyone in undue risk situations. Where we’re creating potential safety matters that first responders would have to respond to, so we’ll always air on the side of safety,” he said.
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