Districts who announced they were staying closed for another day Tuesday included Dayton, Kettering, Centerville, Beavercreek, Springboro, Miamisburg, Northmont, Xenia, Fairborn, West Carrollton and Vandalia-Butler.
Beth Sizemore, a spokeswoman for Beavercreek schools, said Monday night that the school district is constantly in communication with the city, township and county.
“While some main roads may be clear (by Tuesday), we know that many of our neighborhood roads will not be clear enough to allow for safe transportation to school,” Sizemore said late Monday.
She said the district does not plan to move to online learning unless they have more than seven calamity days — what schools call taking days off for emergencies.
Northern Miami Valley communities got a little less snow, and Troy City Schools was one of the districts that originally hoped to have students back in classes Tuesday. On Monday night, they set a two-hour delay for Tuesday, but this morning they changed that to another full closure day, saying road crews were not able to fully clear the streets in time.
The late change led some parents to post angry responses on the school’s Facebook page, citing difficulty making last-minute work or babysitter arrangements.
And that led to a follow-up post from the school district, which tried to explain the decision-making process — balancing “our most important functions” to both educate children and keep children safe. They also apologized for the late change and said, “We thank you for your patience as we attempt to do both.”
“We understand this is not always convenient for parents, especially working parents, and for that we apologize,” Troy Schools’ post said. “However, with more than 4,000 students and their families in our district, it is impossible to always come up with solutions that will help us educate our students, help us keep our students safe and be the most convenient for all of our families.”
A note about 2-hour delays and school closings: Two of our most important functions as a school district are to...
Posted by Troy Schools on Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Dayton Public Schools Superintendent David Lawrence said he woke up around 3 a.m. Monday and was out with the crews that were clearing streets. In some places, he said crews had moved eight feet of snow into the middle of parking lots.
He said he finds it’s better to call off school earlier to allow families to make childcare or other arrangements for the next day.
“There’s people who are watching the kids, jobs — there’s all kinds of mitigating factors when we call off our schools at the community level,” he said.
In past years, Dayton schools have sometimes stayed open more often, because so many children depend on getting breakfast and lunch at school.
In 2020 and 2021, when the schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, DPS struggled with having all students do schoolwork from home. The district found many students didn’t have access to electronic devices to do homework and didn’t have access to WiFi. The district sent out buses to use as WiFi hubs for students or provided paper work for students.
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