`Snow policies differ more than the weather`

By Erin Remai
Herald Staff Writer

On Monday and Tuesday mornings this week, students in Mercer County got out of bed and into layers of clothes to slip and slide their way to school. Meanwhile, students at Brookfield, Hubbard and Badger slept in and reveled in an extended Christmas holiday.

Only a few miles separate the school districts; they get the same snow, ice and biting wind. But the districts’ snow-day policies are drastically different.

Ohio schools have five grace days built into their cal-endars, while Pennsylvania schools have to make up every snow day.

Ohio students are required to be in school six hours a day, which does away with the possibility of those two-hour delays, common in Pennsylvania.

“Pennsylvania goes with the time delay, but it would just be too chaotic having students come in two hours later,” said Joseph White, superintendent of Brookfield schools. “The students are to be in school six hours a day. If we had a delay, we wouldn’t make the time requirements.” Across the line, superintendents Richard Rossi of Sharon and Dr. Derry Stufft of Sharpsville are strong believ-ers in two-hour delays.

“I would use a delay if two hours would improve the cir-cumstances by which students come to school,” Stufft said. “If we don’t gain anything by a delay, there’s no use doing it.” Stufft added Sharpsville schools have been open every day so far this year. If he had to close the school, he said, he would use Easter break to make up the days.

Rossi said Sharon’s situa-tion is unique because all the students walk to school. “Our two-hour delay is based on the wind-chill factor and we don’t have buses to worry about,” Rossi said. “It’s important that all sidewalks are passable and the roads are clear.” Richard Rubano, Farrell su-perintendent, said he con-sulted with Rossi Sunday night before deciding to delay school two hours on Monday.

“When you have a large amount of kids who walk to school, you have to be care-ful,” Rubano said. “Because of the severe wind-chill factor we’re concerned about the little ones.” Stufft said he also takes walkers into consideration when deciding whether to close or delay school.

“When it comes to tempera-ture, you have to look at the number of children who walk as opposed to being bused, plus the actual temperature itself,” he said.

Besides temperature and wind-chill factor, superinten-dents look at road conditions when considering closing the school.

In rural areas such as Reynolds, sometimes speedy snow removal can be a problem. “I imagine other areas off the beaten path are similar; they don’t have as much so-phisticated snow-removal equipment,” said Maddox Stokes, Reynolds superintendent. “Sometimes it can be a problem, but most of the time (the roads) are pretty good.”

Both White and Stufft de-pend on the municipal main-tenance supervisors to bring them news of dangerous roads. Rossi said he gets a phone call from Sharon Police Chief Raymond C. Greene if the streets are bad.

“If the roads are unsafe, we close the schools,” Brook-field’s White said. “We’re not going to take the chance, be-cause it’s not only unsafe for students who take buses but for the high school kids who drive to school. We’re not going to jeopardize the life of a student.” Once superintendents de-cide to close or delay school, they use a variety of methods to get the message out. Rubano calls seven staff members, who in turn call more staff until everyone is notified. Then local radio and television stations are called using a confidential code to avoid impostors.

“There are glitches to the system. On TV they said Far-rell was closed when we were just delayed, but these things happen,” Rubano said.

Rossi said Sharon adminis-trators try to make the deci-sion early enough to get it on radio and television so parents have adequate time to plan. He also calls the school board president to discuss what is in the best interest of the stu-dents.

Rossi said that while admin-istrators make the decision to close the schools, the final responsibility for students’ welfare lies with their parents.

“If they feel it is not safe, they may make the decision to keep the child at home,” Rossi said.

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Updated January 5, 1999
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