With weather that made a mess of morning transportation on the two previous days of school–Friday, Jan. 9 and Monday, Jan 12–the school district has taken some heat from parents on how, when and if schedule changes are decided and communicated by Wilton school administrators.
Ultimately, the decision to cancel or delay school rests with one person–superintendent of schools Dr. Kevin Smith. Acknowledging that Friday’s snowfall took a surprise turn that caught him (and everyone) off guard, he explained how the decision got made that day–and what his thought process is each time he has to consider closing or delaying school.
To Close, To Delay or Not? What happened Friday…
Unless the weather forecast is 100-percent sure the night before, he has to get up pretty early to figure out what the district will do. Understanding the implication of making a late call so close to the start of the school day, Smith says his goal is “the earlier, the better.”
“People have to travel all over the place, and they have to make child care decisions. The safety of our students, families and staff is first and foremost. That’s important. People sometimes react but we do the very best we can with the information we have at the time. I try to consult with as many people as possible who have information so I can make a good judgement.”
So how does he make the call to delay or cancel?
“Depending on what’s going on, decisions are made on a day-by-day, case-by-case, weather incident-by-weather incident basis. On Friday, I got up [at 4 a.m.] and called the Wilton police department–that’s typically my first call, to check in and see how were the roads. At that point the dispatch officer said they weren’t aware of any concerns or worries. I also called the highway supervisor, he said the trucks were out no concerns, no worries,” he says.
Once he finishes those calls, there’s another early morning phone call on days when inclement weather is likely. It’s with a meteorologist contracted by the district to give very specific forecasts. Several school district superintendents participate in the call, something that Smith said wasn’t done in the district until he took over as the school’s chief.
“He takes us through, in detailed fashion, his forecast, area by area. What it looks like in Wilton, what it looks like in Easton and Redding, what it looks like in New Fairfield, New Canaan. What are the differences, the similarity, what’s the timing, so on. Then we have a discussion given what we’re hearing, what is the appropriate course of action,” Smith explains, adding that he was also in touch with district transportation coordinator Mary Channing, who he says also monitors the weather “very carefully.”
“She said that the buses have chains and she didn’t see anything particularly alarming to her that day.”
Smith said what happened with the weather system that moved through Wilton Friday morning, however, caught everyone by surprise.
“The intensity of the snowfall in this region came as a shock to everyone, including the meteorologist. It wasn’t expected,” he said. “It caught me completely off guard. I was expecting a coating, maybe an inch. When I talked to the highway supervisor, he suggested that there was sand and salt on the roads left over from the last time they laid down a coating. The fact that the snow accumulated so rapidly, that the situation deteriorated so rapidly, it was completely unexpected for everybody, and it certainly created a lot of problems for folks.”
Timing is always key, and that’s what makes the detailed forecast important.
“Would a delay make sense? Because you’ll still have buses out on the road. The understanding that I had, and some of the others had, was it would be preferable to get the buses in and out earlier. We were thinking based on the information we heard that we would be able to transport kids safely. Clearly, you saw the timing was off because the intensity of the band that came through,” Smith explained.
All the students made it safely to school, although with many arriving much later than the first bells at their respective destinations. There was only one incident involving a school bus that slid on a slippery patch of roadway, but no one was injured or hurt.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: GOOD Morning Wilton has heard multiple reports that the driver of that bus was suspended, much to the consternation of many parents in the district. There’s been a great deal of chatter on social media amounting to what seems a groundswell of support for the driver, who has reportedly been driving Wilton school buses for several years. An online petition has been started by a parent urging the district’s transportation coordinator to reinstate the driver, and GMW has received several emails in support of the driver as well. We asked Superintendent Smith about the incident and he would only say that he could not comment on personnel issues. We have reached out to the driver via social media, but have not heard back at press time. We also have not yet been able to confirm anything from the transportation coordinator to verify the official account from the school. We’ll follow up on the story as we learn more.]
A Question of Communication
Monday morning, there was a close repeat of Friday’s weather, with early morning snowfall hitting right around the time school buses would be on the road. Coupled with icy rain, it made for dangerous road conditions once again.
This time, Smith called a two-hour delayed start to school. However, a hitch in the communication system caused a delay for email, phone and text alerts intended for parents, so that they didn’t hear from the school until relatively late in the morning, starting around 6 a.m.
Even though the delay was reported around 5 a.m. on both the “NBC CT School Closing” website and the Wilton CT School Bus Info Facebook page, there was no ‘official’ word on any Wilton Public School website or via official school communication measures. That left a lot of parents confused.
“All the decision making is supposed to be made by 5 a.m., if it can be, that’s my time. I like to have people notified by 5 a.m. There was a problem with our School Messenger system this morning that we’ve since resolved. One of the individuals who works here in the central office is tasked with doing all of the notifications. When she attempted to send out the phone call and text [to parents] at 5 a.m., the time field was assigned to 6 a.m. and she didn’t have access to change it. We had to change her user rights. Her normal process would be to do the School Messenger alert [to parents] first and then call the TV stations and radio stations [after]. This morning she called all the TV stations first. Next time you can expect the message will go out [to parents] probably by 5:15 a.m.,” Smith said.
We asked him if the district would ever consider being more active on social media, given how much Wilton parents seem to rely on Facebook as means to get information. His answer indicates parents can expect that will be added to the regular mix.
“We just discussed that today, and that’s part of streamlining the process. My intention is to use every outlet we have, including Facebook and Twitter,” Smith said.
He acknowledges that the administration does try to learn from its missteps.
“Today was a valuable experience in highlighting for us those [communication] gaps that we’re already addressing. Those became pretty apparent. We have a challenge because there are a few folks in the community who don’t want to receive phone calls at 5:15 in the morning, so trying to be responsive to individual preferences like that is posing a bit of a challenge,” he adds.
Parents can set their communication preferences on the Power School portal.
- Once they’ve logged in, on the left-hand side of the screen is a ‘Navigation’ tab.
- Click on ‘School Messenger’ and then click on contacts.
- Each child will be listed. Click on ‘edit’ to open the list of communication options for receiving communication from the school.
- After making the choices, click ‘save.’
- Repeat the edit for all children registered in the district.