Kelsey Long
The wet snow begins falling heavily as students go to bed, dreaming about a snow day. Some wear their pajamas inside out while others play video games late into the night, sure that they will not have to wake up in the morning. Then, when 6 a.m. comes around, they are incredibly disappointed and angry, with good reason. Cherry Creek School District is open.

This is an outage. By opening the schools, despite Denver and Jefferson county closing their schools, CCSD is forcing students to walk or drive to school in freezing temperatures. Ice on the roads cause cars and buses to skid and the snow slows down the vehicles. The RTD buses were running as many as 30 minutes late, causing students to be tardy. Students who walked to school had to do so in temperatures as low as nine degrees, which is dangerously cold, while students waited in lines outside for buses. Teenage drivers, from those who have been driving for a day to six months had, to drive in hazardous conditions.

Danger exists everytime it snows, and I understand that school can’t be closed everytime it snows. However, there was six inches of snow on the ground on Monday, with totals being around a foot in some places. Add six more inches on Wednesday night and more snow (around four to five inches) falling during Thursday afternoon, and there is a recipe for disaster. On Thursday, a student flipped his jeep when turning into the front parking lot. Is one crash acceptable to CCSD or is safety not a true concern?

Furthermore, attendance was optional. 587 students took advantage of this but the other 3/4ths of the students felt pressured to attend to avoid makeup work on top of existing homework and they may not have known that they would have been excused had they chosen to not attend. Just making attendance optional will not prevent accidents, cancellations will.

Despite complaints from students and parents towards CCSD’s cancellation policy, school still was not canceled despite it being highly encouraged. When CCSD decides to cancel, different staff members drive around their neighborhoods around 3:30 a.m. to see the driving conditions. This doesn’t work as the snow continued on after this time of night and they don’t drive everywhere they need to, such as main roads and neighborhoods where many students live. When making a decision, CCSD should look where the majority of the student population live as well as walking as if they were a student.

School should have been cancelled and school should be cancelled on Friday as more snow is expected to fall. Either CCSD should change their cancellation policy or pay attention to the CCSD community.