Lack of school delays questioned

Many students, staff, and parents are wondering why DCHS has yet to have a weather-related delay.

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Many students, staff, and parents are wondering why DCHS has yet to have a weather-related delay.

Indiana students are well familiar with school delays and cancellations. Weather in Indiana can be rather sporadic—extreme highs, extreme lows, thunderstorms, flooding, patchy, dense fog, ice and snow—Indiana has it all.  These conditions can often make travel dangerous for buses and young, inexperienced student drivers. Already this school year,  Delphi’s students and staff experienced three mornings with extremely low visibility due to fog. Travel in these harsh conditions is unsafe. Some have even speculated that safety has not been taken into consideration.

Miranda Edwards, junior, said, “I feel like the driving conditions on a couple of mornings this year have been unsafe. Two hours of school isn’t worth risking someone’s life.”

Though many have strong opinions on this issue, few know the process involved in calling a delay or a cancellation.  Mr. Striebeck, Director of Operations at Delphi, explained that there is a special group of employees consisting of local superintendents, school board members, and highway officials that are contacted in order to delay or cancel school. This network of people is, in theory, supposed to be able to evaluate the entire county’s weather conditions by checking the radar and driving various roads to ultimately make the decision on whether to cancel or delay school. The criteria changes depending on the type of weather condition; but the goal is ultimately the same: to ensure the safety of travel for all students and staff during their morning travel.

The process seems thorough; however, in this year alone students and staff have been required to trod on to school through extreme fog and even a flash flood warning. Mr. Striebeck admitted, “Fog is a tough one because it can vary so much throughout the school district.  There have been times when we have delayed and the fog is actually worse later on than when we called the delay.  There have been times when we didn’t call it at 6:00 and then the fog just got terrible.  Regarding the rain incident a couple of Fridays ago, if we had delayed the roads would have been worse later in the morning.  Mother Nature is very unpredictable and we do our best to make the correct decision.  Just like the weather folks, we get it wrong and understand that no matter which way we decide there will be someone who feels we got it wrong.”

Delphi students still continue to voice their concern over the matter. One frustrated student claimed, “We realize that predicting the weather is not a perfect science. Sometimes, once in a while, they’ll get it wrong. However, mistakes are being made more than three or four times a month, and that can’t happen when those mistakes could potentially cause someone to get seriously injured or even killed. If it’s just going to worsen throughout the day, maybe we should take the day off. It’s better to be safe than sorry. We can make up the day on a day when roads are more conducive to safe driving. ”

Students aren’t the only ones speaking out about their feelings on the issue. A concerned teacher voiced her opinions of the topic as well. “I do not feel that safety has been taken into account as much as it should have been thus far this year.  For example, the morning when we were under flash flood warnings and even teachers were hydroplaning on the way in, there most certainly should have been a delay. I also feel that fog has been a serious issue one or two mornings, particularly on the new highway.  I strongly encourage those making the decisions to consider if it is worth even one weather-related car accident to NOT call a delay.  Instructional time is valuable, but lives are even more-so.”