Looking into Columbia school’s policy on late starts
Temperatures hovered around five degrees Monday morning with wind chills of -11 degrees.
While some schools had a delayed start, Columbia Public Schools had a normal day.
ABC 17 News checked, and conditions Monday were very similar to prior late starts.
On February 5, CPS announced a two hour delay. On that morning, it was around five degrees with a wind chill of -5 degrees.
Jumping back one month, CPS had a delayed start on January 7, 8 and 12. Those were also cold mornings.
On Jan. 7, wind chills in Columbia were around -11 degrees and there were trace amounts of snow.
On Jan. 8, Columbia saw -14 degree wind chills.
ABC 17 News reached out to CPS to find out more about what played into the decision to have a regular start time given the conditions.
Calls were not returned before the news deadline, but on Friday, Dr. Peter Stiepleman, Superintendent for Columbia Public Schools, appeared on “This Week,” saying they do late starts for several reasons.
“One is student safety,” Stiepleman said on Feb. 20. “The idea of a six-year-old waiting for a bus at 6:30 in the morning, and I’ll worry that the bus may not start because of the diesel fuel gels. The second is consistency of instruction.”
On Twitter Monday, Dr. Stiepleman tweeted, “We’re going with regular. Crews worked all weekend to get buildings ready and will be going in at 4 a.m. Got to trust the team on this.”
