Baby it's cold outside!

When I arrived at work this morning the air temperature, as measured by my car, was 5 degrees.

As I walked from the parking lot to my office I said to myself, "It is very cold!"

As I fired up my computer I looked at a weather site on the Internet and saw that we had winds of 19 MPH. That produced a wind chill of -15 degrees.

Finally I pulled up the National Weather Service wind chill chart.



This chart serves as a guide. Wind chills can be dangerous. But we can moderate the effects of the wind in the winter by dressing appropriately.

The school district's unwritten policy is that we will not cancel school unless the wind chill is consistently below -25 degrees.

Living in Michigan we can expect there to be cold weather. We must take the appropriate precautions.

The safety of the students in our district is always on my mind. In the winter I take great care to monitor weather conditions. I will not put our students at risk.

However, we can expect there to be cold weather in Michigan. Being in school is important. Cancelling school disrupts the learning process.

Cancelling school because of the weather is not a decision that I take lightly. I gather as much information as I can. I look to weather experts to give us guidance.

And I always keep the safety of our students in mind.