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Why do schools call 2-hour delays? It's more complicated than you think

By Dana Hunsinger Benbow
dana.benbow@indystar.com

This story was originally published on Jan. 23, 2014.

The temp was a frigid -3 degrees at 8 a.m. Thursday, about the time school children should have been waiting at bus stops.

Too cold for that, said Central Indiana schools districts, almost all of them opting to issue a 2-hour delay.

But a funny thing happened as those two hours passed. Or — more accurately — didn't happen.

By 9 a .m., the temperature was -2 degrees. By 10 a.m., it was -1 degree. The wind chills never changed.

So why two-hour delays at almost every district from Carmel, Noblesville and Greenwood to Center Grove, Pike, Lawrence and Washington townships?

Why are schools announcing delays that working parents lament?

"You're looking at the exact same temperatures, wind chills very much the same," said meteorologist Crystal Pettet with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis. "You'll have to ask school officials that."

We did. And the answers were eye opening.

It turns out the school delay formula is almost as confusing as the school funding formula.

There are road conditions and weather temperatures to consider, of course. But there are also persnickety school buses that, as one mechanic said, like to be babied. There's a desire to avoid rush hour traffic. And there's waiting until it's light out so that a child who has fallen in blustery temperatures can be spotted.

So, just because the temperature is the same from 7 or 8 a.m. to 9 or 10 a.m. doesn't mean other conditions haven't changed, said Ellen Rogers, spokeswoman for Washington Township schools.

"The decision to do a two-hour delay, it's just very complicated," she said. "So many things. Not just a school bus, a school stop. There are also facilities to take into consideration. It's so hard to peg it on one thing."

But there is one issue that continued to pop up from school officials: Buses.

Including Rogers, who said "there are certain things on them that freeze up."

When it gets this cold — like the -15 to -25-degree wind chills expected to hit Friday morning — school buses need some babying, said Seth Burrell,manager at Pete's Service Center on Pennsylvania Street.

"Buses just have a different type of engine, a different tolerance," he said. "Even our cars aren't meant for these subzero temperatures, but school buses definitely aren't."

So a two-hour delay gives drivers more time to get the big yellow vehicles up and running.

Most buses are plugged in overnight to keep the fuel from gelling. But it still isn't easy to get them to start. They need a lot of time to warm up. Not to mention, many are frozen shut.

A two-hour delay "gives us time to get buses warmed up, make certain they are all functioning correctly, and correct anything that may be detected," said Libbie Conner, superintendent of Noblesville Schools.

No one wants a bus to head out, pick up kids and then stall in the freezing temps, school officials say.

A later start time also means fewer commuters on the road.

"It speeds up the route times when buses aren't mixed up with the morning rush hour traffic," Conner said, "which is critical in these temps."

But are school districts getting soft?

Take the Blizzard of 1978, which hit Indiana, Illinois and Ohio and left Indianapolis buried under more than 20 inches of snow.

From Jan. 25 to Jan. 27 snow fell, the winds blew and temperatures plummeted. While air temperatures hovered at zero, wind-chill temperatures dipped to -51 degrees.

In Indianapolis, school children missed just four days of classes.

Moms, like Kelly Young, whose 2nd- and 5th-grade children attend New Palestine schools, get frustrated by today's delays.

"It certainly creates challenges for any working parent — the rescheduling of meetings and being an effective and an efficient employee and, in my case, an accessible consultant to my clients," said Young, owner of Baise Communications. "The safety of the kids is the most important thing for any parent, but I can't help but wonder why we can't bundle them up."

The ripple effect of the recent delays are subtle and not-so-subtle.

When it comes to the educational effect, schools are not required to make up two-hour delays, said Daniel Altman spokesman with the Indiana Department of Education.

But could all those two-hour delays end up being a detriment to a child's learning?

"I wouldn't want to speculate on what effect weather has," Altman said. "That decision to either delay or cancel is a local decision. We obviously believe the schools should have that ability."

Many schools, this time of year are teaching the skills needed for the all-important ISTEP tests, the first set of which is given in March.

How do teachers deal with that?

Ruth Ann Monaghan has taught school for nearly four decades and remembers a time in the 1990s when her Greenfield school had two-hour delays over and over and over, much like schools are experiencing now.

While the delays may be an inconvenience to parents, the kindergarten teacher at Eden Elementary doesn't feel like kids "miss out." Teachers know how to tweak lesson plans to make it work, she said.

"We are masters at looking at what is to be presented and can rearrange, combine or do whatever needs to be done to fit everything in over the course of a few days," Monaghan said.

Heather Noesges, principal at Fortville Elementary, agreed that teachers work hard on those days to "make the most of the few hours that we do get," she said.

"Of course we would like to have those two hours, but the most important thing is that our students are safe," Noesges said. "The bitter cold is too dangerous for our students to be standing at bus stops."

And there are likely more two-hour delays to come. The bitter cold isn't going to end any time soon.

A wind chill advisory is in effect until 1 p.m. Friday with wind gusts of up to 35 mph in the afternoon. On Monday and Tuesday, frigid cold is expected to hit again.

Call Star reporter Dana Hunsinger Benbow at (317) 444-6012. Follow her on Twitter: @danabenbow.