Winter storm results in snow days for local students

KELLOGG/WALLACE — The Kellogg and Wallace school districts made the tough call to cancel school on Monday following Sunday’s extreme winter weather.

The decision to call a snow day is not a simple decision, but requires that several factors be considered before that call is made.

In the Wallace School District, snow days are a rarity.

In fact, WSD Superintendent Dr. Bob Ranells believes he has called for more “ice” days than snow days in his 14 years with the district.

To make the determination, Ranells will drive some of the routes that the bus drivers would and then he makes his recommendation to the transportation department.

“Most of our roads are maintained by the county,” Ranells said. “The county guys got absolutely slammed and they were honest with us and told us that they just hadn’t had enough time to get to many of the places that we need them to. That made the decision pretty easy from there.”

As a matter of safety, several students in the Wallace School District catch bus rides from places like Dobson Pass toward Murray, Sunny Slopes and Terror Gulch in Osburn, Nine Mile Gulch, Woodland Park and Burke near Wallace.

If these areas are unsafe for the buses to go up, there are quite a few students who can’t get to school.

“I think that when you consider the weather and the conditions, we were better served to call school off today,” Ranells said.

In Kellogg, snow days are a little more common, but require a similar level of supervision when making the determination.

KSD Transportation Director Lori Osterberg is tasked with keeping tabs hundreds on miles of roads, some as far away as Medimont on Highway 3, much of the North Fork, Cataldo and it’s many nooks and crannies, not to mention every gulch between Big Creek and Rose Lake.

All in all, the Kellogg School District runs buses roughly 1,150 miles daily and Osterberg is tasked with knowing exactly where she needs to go to determine if there is going to be a snow day or not.

“I’ll take my truck out in two-wheel drive and I’ll drive up one of the many gulches in the area,” Osterberg said. “If I start to slip, I’ll throw it in Four-High and if that’s working then we’ll have school because I know my buses have more weight and traction than my truck and we can also use chains.”

However, there are days like Monday morning where, Four-High wasn’t enough and Osterberg made the choice to recommend that the district call a snow day.

“We have to consider everything,” Osterberg said. “The guys running the plows for us, the families, the kiddos. Safety is the top priority and when you see the guys running the plows hitting places and then we get another foot of snow before they can get back to it, we know they’re working hard and we have to be understanding of their limitations.”