Superintendent Update
Weather Cancellations and more--February 22, 2023
Through quality education our students will achieve personal success
The Telluride School District will support all students in striving for their highest potential through quality academics while addressing individual needs within a safe and healthy community.
Weather Cancellations and more
Dear TSD Families and Community,
I wanted to follow up on the events of today and the possibilities for tomorrow.
Today’s Cancellation - The decision today to cancel school is not a decision I take lightly. I realize the impact closing school has on working families, especially those with young children. We balance this with the safety of our staff and students.
We have over 30 staff members currently living in Norwood, Rico, Ridgway, Ophir. This does not include the various mesas and other remote locations where many more staff live. In addition to staff, many of our students and families also live in all of those locations. I must consider the travel and safety of all of these people in making a cancellation decision. In addition to just safety, running school with a significant percent of staff and students not present gets complicated in many ways. Years ago, a higher percentage of our staff and students lived in and close to town. That is no longer the case, and that has an impact on the decision making.
In planning for this school year, we added minutes to our daily schedule to accommodate for more emergency closures. We previously had enough extra instructional minutes in the year to allow for one full closure day without going under the minimum state required instructional minutes. We now have enough extra instructional minutes for three full day closures.
In making a decision, we look not only at the snow accumulation in the morning, but at the full set of weather conditions for the region for the entire day including afternoon release time. Today it was clear the weather would get worse, with a forecast high wind gusts that would also be a factor.
I am re-sharing our general cancellation/delay procedures at the bottom of this message.
Swatting Threats – If you have not heard, there were a multitude of threats to school districts across Colorado today, resulting in a series of lockdowns and reunifications. A swatting call was made to dispatch targeting our district, which was handled by our local Marshal’s office and determined to be non-credible fairly quickly. The Marshal’s did due diligence and checked all of our schools as part of their response. I am aware that a similar threat was made to at least two nearby districts.
I found the information that the Boulder Valley School District shared with families in their reunification communication to be worth sharing with you. In the event we ever end up in a reunification, we would be using similar communication:
- Students are being relocated to Macky Auditorium on the University of Colorado Campus, located at 1595 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO 80309. We anticipate beginning the reunification process at 11:00 a.m.
- Families are asked to send one adult representative, who has permission to pick up the child at the reunification location. If possible, please bring some form of identification. Please use the East parking lot and doors of Macky Auditorium.
- If there are any families that are unable to come and pick up their student(s) at this time, we have staff who will be staying with them, until you are able to pick them up. If you need to make special arrangements please call 720-561-2200.
- BVSD representatives will be standing by to answer Boulder’s main line. STUDENTS AND STAFF NOT AT BOULDER HIGH If you are a student or staff member who had not yet arrived for school at Boulder High School today – DO NOT COME TO THE SCHOOL.
- School and after-school activities are canceled for the remainder of the day. We will send more information about the next steps this afternoon.
Tomorrow – No decision has been made at this point about school for tomorrow. We will assess conditions in the morning. At this point everyone should be prepared for any of the following three possibilities:
- A regular school day
- A two-hour delay
- A full day cancellation
If there is a delay or cancellation, notification should be out prior to 6:00am.
General Cancellation Procedures - On January 30th I shared the procedures for school cancellations and delays which I will share again below.
School Cancellations and Delays
As several questions came up last week regarding weather-related closures, I am including the procedure below that we follow in making this determination. This is based on our emergency procedures but has been revised to reflect how we currently communicate through School Messenger and email. We added minutes to our daily schedule this year to increase the number of allowable cancellation days from one to three before we fall under the minimum number of required instructional minutes. With February and March historically being the snowiest months, I anticipate we will use most if not all of these allowable cancellation days. If we need to use more than those three days due to unsafe conditions, we will certainly do that and then figure out how to deal with it.
Weather Related Procedure for Closing School
In the event weather conditions are such that the safety of the children may be compromised when busing students to or from school, the following procedures will be followed.
MORNING CLOSING:
1. Director of Operations (Ken) and Facilities and Maintenance Coordinator (Brandon) will evaluate the road conditions in the school district, by driving the roads and contacting the Sheriff and County Transportation Director when deemed necessary.
2. If conditions are such that a decision must be made to possibly cancel school, the Director of Operations will confer with the Superintendent, who will make a final determination. If the Superintendent is unavailable, the Director of Operations will contact Principals. The final decision will be made by the Director of Operations if the Superintendent is not available.
3. A decision to cancel school will be made by 6:00 a.m.
4. An email will go out to all staff.
5. School Messenger email, voice message, and texts will be sent to all family contacts, subs, coaches, and community organizations in the contact lists.
6. KOTO (728-4333) will be contacted to ensure that news of school cancellation will be broadcast in a timely manner.
7. Family notifications should be completed by 7:00 a.m.
MORNING DELAY:
1. In the event that a determination is made that conditions are unsafe for a normal start, but they are expected to improve to allow for a safe delayed start, the process above will be followed to communicate a two-hour delayed start. Bus routes will run exactly two hours later than normal. Each Principal will develop a schedule for their building reflecting a two-hour delay.
EARLY DAYTIME CLOSING:
1. In the event that developing conditions might prompt early closing of the school, the above procedures for determination and notification will be in effect.
2. Early closing will only take place if it is determined buses will be unable to travel safely at the time of normally scheduled runs, but will be able to travel safely by leaving earlier.
Please keep in mind how much all of us care for the children of our school community.
Sincerely,
John Pandolfo
Superintendent
970-369-1213
John Pandolfo
Email: jpandolfo@telluride.k12.co.us
Website: tellurideschool.org
Location: 725 West Colorado Avenue, Telluride, CO, USA
Phone: 970-369-1213