AURORA | While schools in Denver and Jefferson County — the state’s two biggest school districts — were closed because of snow Thursday, students in Aurora were sitting at their desks like it was any other day.
And police say despite some initial concern, the storm that rolled across the Front Range from Wednesday night through Thursday didn’t snarl local roads.
“It was much ado about nothing, it looks like,” said Aurora police Lt. Mike McClelland, who oversees the department’s traffic section.
McClelland said his traffic officers saw roads that were a little slick and icy in spots Thursday morning, but otherwise the traffic situation has been pretty much a regular day.
At Cherry Creek School District and Aurora Public Schools, the school day started on time despite the storm.
Aurora Public Schools officials were out at midnight looking at roads and closely monitoring the weather forecast, APS spokeswoman Dianne Lewis said.
After reviewing the situation until about 4 a.m., school officials decided it was plenty safe for the school day to go on as scheduled.
Denver Public Schools canceled school around 6 a.m.
A snarky comment on the Aurora Sentinel Facebook page about Aurora having to tough out the snow while Jeffco and Denver schools closed drew huge and often angry responses from parents and students.
Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for Cherry Creek schools, said deciding whether to cancel school is always a tough decision. Some people will be upset that school wasn’t canceled when the weather is bad, while others will be mad if school is canceled and they have to figure out where their children will go while they’re at work, she said.
“No matter what decision you make there will be people who won’t agree with it,” she said.
State law mandates a certain number of classroom hours for students every year, and Amole said the district includes two days in the schedule each year that can be used for a snow day. If the district uses both of those, they have to cancel other scheduled days off or stretch the school year a few days into the summer to make up for it.
“We are very judicious about snow days,” she said.
With a possibly snowy March still to come, Amole said district officials want to make sure they have those days available if they need.
The National Weather Service forecast for Aurora calls for 1 to 3 inches of snow through Thursday night, and snow possible again Friday.
“Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for Cherry Creek schools, said deciding
whether to cancel school is always a tough decision. Some people will be
upset that school wasn’t canceled when the weather is bad, while others
will be mad if school is canceled and they have to figure out where
their children will go while they’re at work, she said.
‘No matter what decision you make there will be people who won’t agree with it,’ she said.”
Which explains the cowardly message on Cherry Creek’s website instructing students to come if they wanted too. By letting each family decide whether or not it was a snow day, they avoided taking any responsibility for a decision.
“State law mandates a certain number of classroom hours for students every year”
Yet Cherry Creek schools told their students and parents to feel to stay home, indicating that they don’t actually value instructional time, they just don’t want irritate parents.
Yeah, how dare they let parents make their own decisions. What were they thinking.