In a ceaselessly challenging winter, Tuesday, for many, was the breaking point.
Schools across the area canceled classes for the fourth day in less than a month, and for the second straight day the cause was subzero temperatures and double-digit negative wind chills, not the typical culprit: heavy snow.
The decision irked some parents, who once again had to deal with the logistics of having their kids home. It also raised the issue of how cold is too cold and what other factors are considered when it comes to deciding to keep schools shuttered.
Districts aren’t relaxing their standards when it comes to calling off school; they’re just reacting to abnormal temperatures, said Jeff Arnett, spokesman for Barrington Community Unit School District 220.
“It’s been a unique winter,” Arnett said. “I think everyone reaches a threshold at some point, given how much tolerance they have for not only the weather but also the days off from school.”
The deciding factor is always the safety of the students, many of whom gather at bus stops before sunrise or have to walk to school when temperatures are most brutal, he said.
But some students took the opportunity to go shopping or meet up with friends, which seemed to stoke the frustration among parents who didn’t think the biting cold warranted closing schools.
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Gelly Napoleon and her 10-year-old son Peter went out to lunch with friends Tuesday in Huntley.
“If we can go out … for lunch, then we should be able to have our kids go to school,” the Arlington Heights mother said.
Like most districts, Naperville Community Unit School District 203 officials called off classes Monday and Tuesday after weighing multiple factors, including temperature, wind chill, safety of students who walk and take buses, and safety of staff while traveling, Deputy Superintendent Kaine Osburn said.
“While some kids might be able to hustle to their car and get to the mall late in the day, that doesn’t mean that between 6:30 and 7:30 (a.m.) it’s safe to have young children out on the street corner in these conditions,” Osburn said.
After closing Monday, Northfield’s Sunset Ridge School District 29 was one of the few districts — if not the only one in the Chicago area — to be open Tuesday.
“We reviewed the weather forecast, our mechanical operations and considered the unique characteristics of our district in making our ultimate decision,” Superintendent Edward Stange said in a statement.
The small, two-school district does not operate buses and relies on parents to drop off the children, Stange said. Students who weren’t able to make it to school or whose parents thought it was unsafe to send them would get an excused absence.
Parents who gripe about the old days, when school seldom was canceled, are not totally off the mark. At Chicago Public Schools, before this month, schools had been shut down on only four occasions since 1999. All four of those cancellations — two in 1999 and two in 2011 — were after snowfall of more than 20 inches, said Joel Hood, CPS spokesman.
However, this year’s extreme cold prompted different thinking for the 400,000-student district, in which 378,000 students walk or take public transportation to school each day, Hood added.
“Unlike a lot of suburban districts, there’s not a lot of bus transportation happening each day,” Hood said. “The conditions that kids are walking through are always a major part of our decision.”
Suburban school officials, meanwhile, noted that kids in their districts are exposed to the extreme elements as well.
“You can’t assume that every child has a ride,” said Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205 Superintendent David Pruneau. “A lot of parents try to drive them on days that are really cold, but I do have some families with two working parents, and maybe they’re leaving when the kids are walking to school.”
In Schaumburg Community Consolidated School District 54, more than half of the 14,000 students take the bus to school, spokeswoman Terri McHugh said.
“Despite us closing four days this month, which is not something we’ve done in the 14 years I’ve been here, what we’ve heard from the parents is predominantly that they appreciate that decision,” she said.
To pass the time, Hinsdale resident Ingrid Ellithorpe took her daughter, Sara, to Yorktown Center Mall in Lombard.
“I think it’s too dangerous for those kids who have to walk or wait for the bus,” Ellithorpe said. “But I do hope this will be the last day that gets canceled.”
Most Chicago-area districts were expected to reopen Wednesday.
Skokie dad Joseph Ruffner, who took his two daughters, Sofia, 4, and Isabella, 7, to the Evanston Public Library, embraced the “snow day” as a chance to spend time with his children. He said school districts probably have to look at closings from a liability standpoint.
“They’re playing it safe,” Ruffner said. “In an age of lawsuits, you don’t want even one kid to be stuck at a corner because he missed a bus.”
For the record, even after taking two more days off this week, Chicago-area schools are still under the mandatory five emergency days that administrators are required to build into the school calendar. The Illinois State Board of Education mandates that each school district build a calendar with 185 school days — including emergency days, said Mary Fergus, spokeswoman for the state board of education.
Many districts tack those emergency days on at the end of the school year, which will keep students in class later in June unless their individual districts planned for the makeups earlier. Most school districts now likely have one emergency day left in their calendars. If schools need to close again after that, districts can apply for an “Act of God” day that must be approved by the regional and state superintendents. When approved, “Act of God” days don’t need to be made up on the school calendar, Fergus said.
The state does not set guidelines, however, on when class should be canceled. That’s left for local administrators to decide, she said.
In Lake County, Gurnee School District 56 Superintendent John Hutton said there always will be those who second-guess a district’s decision to cancel class.
Perhaps administrators can’t win. Decisions to not cancel classes prompted a vicious Twitter firestorm Monday at the University of Illinois’ Champaign-Urbana campus. On Tuesday, students at Loyola University Chicago collected signatures online in protest of the college remaining open.
“We always tell our parents if we’re going to err, we’re going to err on the side of protecting the kids rather than making them vulnerable,” Hutton said. “And I can guarantee you, when we make these days up in June, it’s going to be a lot better weather than it is today.”
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Tribune reporter Alexandra Chachkevitch and freelance reporters Amanda Marrazzo and Joseph Ruzich contributed.