Rochester Parents Want To Know Now, Why Didn’t The Schools Close Today?

Thursday morning we woke to a lot of snow and a few schools in our neck of Southeastern Minnesota closed or delayed. That includes Rochester Public Schools...and some parents have been wondering why?

Why Did Rochester Public Schools Not Close Today?

One mom on the Y-105FM Facebook page put it like this...

"Absolutely ridiculous that RPS did not cancel today! The board should be ashamed of themselves for putting our children in danger with the roads as bad they are!"

I told the mom I was confused, too. Then a lot more parents got in touch with me, and so I reached out to Rochester Public Schools. Specifically Superintendent Kent Pekel. I e-mailed him saying, "I've had a few parents ask why RPS isn't closed today."

Here's Why Rochester Public Schools Didn't Close Today

Why didn't RPS close down early or just cancel school? Here's what Superintendent Pekel said in his e-mail response...

Hi James...I am very aware of the need to keep people as safe as we can, which is why I canceled school when snow hit in the early morning last Friday.

The recommendation from our transportation staff this morning was that we could run school and I went out and drove myself (admittedly in town) at 5:15 and it was also OK then.

So today was a judgment call, and when the weather is a judgment call I also need to consider the time that students would lose to learning and the huge impact that canceling school has on some of our families' ability to find child care for their young children.

Should RPS Have Closed This Morning?

I am not a parent, I don't have a clue what it's like to have children going off to school in a snow event. So I'm not the one to say if schools should be closed or not. What do you think? Please, click the link below to tell me your point of view (or if you'd like to write a guest blog, I'd be happy to consider that, too).

Here's my email address: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com

Looking for some fun drive-thru light displays for this weekend?

As always, if you have a comment, complaint, or concern about something I wrote here, please let me know: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com