An abandoned school bus on Fremont Street in Northeast Portland, February 24, 2023. School districts around the metro area are considering whether to cancel school on Thursday to avoid similar fates.Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian
School districts in and around Portland are weighing whether to cancel classes on Thursday in advance of a snow and ice storm that’s forecast to hit the metro area, most likely at mid-morning.
But parents hoping to know before bedtime whether or not school will be on or off Thursday may be in for a disappointment.
“We are monitoring weather forecasts and will make the decision early tomorrow morning,” said Athena Vadnais, a spokesperson for the Gresham-Barlow School District.
“We will communicate early Thursday morning if there will be a delay or closure,” the Tigard-Tualatin School District told parents via mass messaging on Wednesday.
That’s the plan in many other metro-area districts as well, particularly given the unpredictability of the forecast. Snow is predicted before 10 a.m., but almost certainly not enough to stick to the ground on the Willamette Valley floor. But meteorologists say there’s a decent likelihood that it will change to a freezing rain mix by midday or later in the afternoon.
That sets up a nightmarish school pickup scenario reminiscent of the February 2023 ice storm when schools stayed open until the usual midafternoon dismissal time, leaving some students stranded on buses for hours, well into darkness.
Superintendents across Washington County will be on a late afternoon call to discuss the forecast and see if they can make a call before the wee hours of Thursday morning — hopefully, by 8 p.m. Wednesday — said Beth Graser, a spokesperson for the Hillsboro School District.
Freezing rain starting mid-morning is an especially ominous forecast, she said. If school districts split the difference and announce an early release amid such conditions, it could mean inexperienced teen drivers on icy roads, students slipping and falling on iced-over pavement as they walk home and parents scrambling to pick up younger children who would otherwise be in aftercare programs.
Putting buses on snow routes, which is another option that districts will weigh, presents a different host of tricky transportation logistics.
Portland Public Schools makes its decision based primarily on safety, said Valerie Feder, a spokesperson for the district, including sending out staff to scout road conditions and consulting with city of Portland transportation officials.
Making an early decision to call off school has its perils, Graser and others noted. If the weather doesn’t turn out as badly as expected, students lose valuable time in school and other activities and some parents get frustrated over a disrupted workday.
Oregon already has one of the shortest school years in the nation, though many districts pad their calendars to account for the possibility of one or two snow days each year. Decisions about where to add additional make-up days to the calendar typically come in March, when the likelihood of snow decreases considerably.
— Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com