A photo of Shaker Road after Thursday’s storm, which caused cancellation of schools and municipal offices.
WESTFIELD—While snow days can be fun for some, filled with snowball fights, sledding and snowman building, for those who make the decision to have a snow day it can be difficult.
Superintendent of Westfield Public Schools Stefan Czaporowski has to take many factors into consideration when determining to cancel school for weather. Of course, the inclemency of conditions play a role, but Czaporowski also has to take into consideration feedback from local municipal departments, transportation issues and most importantly, safety.
“We want to be safer, we have 5,558 students to worry about,” Czaporowski said. “It’s not just people on the buses, but it’s walkers and teenage drivers who aren’t the most experienced.”
Czaporowski starts the deliberation early in the morning or even the night before, by first talking with Pam Kotarski, director of transportation of Westfield Public Schools. He and Kotarski gather information from the Westfield Police Department, as well as local departments of public works to determine road safety.
“Usually Pam calls me and she talks to police and [departments of public works], and I say plural because we sometimes have to contact Russell. That’s a consideration that people don’t think about, that we have school out there,” Czaporowski said.
In addition, Czaporowski and others are watching the weather forecast and models, deliberating on whether the conditions when they arrive will be bad enough that they cancel beforehand, or conversely, if they want to institute a delay to allow for conditions to improve. This decision can also be muddied by factors like half-days that are scheduled, such as yesterday, thus Westfield canceling school altogether rather than a delay.
And all this must be determined by 5:30 a.m., so the school system can get the word out in time to families and students.
Westfield Schools Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski (WNG file photo)
Of course, this timing can backfire, like when the weather predictions are wrong and students are home with little in the way of inclement weather, but the decision had to be made hours before school starts.
For Czaporowski though, this is acceptable.
“Clearly, our top priority is safety for our students and our staff and that’s why we air on the side of caution,” he said.
This is especially true when it comes to cancelling school for extreme cold.
“We have to realize, as far as the temperature, that not all of our students have appropriate clothing,” he said.
So, rather than risk having children exposed to extreme cold, it may be in the best interest of the school system to cancel the day. Fortunately though, that has not happened yet this school year.
And even with all these factors involved, Czaporowski feels that the amount of canceled school days is acceptable. He said that the school calendar has it built in to have five days of cancellation, and the public school system has not reached that amount in several years.
So, maybe school isn’t canceled too much after all.
