Superintendent on Snow Days: 'Err on the Side of Caution'

For most area public school students, the recent rash of school cancellations from snowfall must seem like late holiday gifts.

For Montville’s superintendent of school, Dr. Paul Fried, the snow has meant a lot of late night, early mornings and tough decisions about the safety of the district’s children.

“I get up at about 4:30 a.m., because the latest I would made the call is 5: 30 and I won’t call that late unless I have to,” he said. “ Between 4:30 and 5 a.m. I’ll talk to one or two or three superintendents. They are usually in touch with different superintendents, and I can begin to get a picture of what everyone is thinking.”

When he hears snow coming, Fried begins to monitor weather patterns by looking at different reports and hourly forecasts. Once he has a picture of what is expected to happen, he makes a late-night call to other area superintendents to compare notes.

While input from other administrators is helpful, Fried doesn’t relay solely on their council because, as he says, “every town has nuances.” Instead, a large part of his decision to cancel a school day comes from his sources at the scene in Montville.

“I have someone in the district, facilities director Steve Toth, who gets on the roads and gives me a first hand account of what conditions look like,” he said. “I get in touch with the police department, who have been very helpful. In one instance, the department reached out to its patrol cars to give me an update. I get perspective from the DPW as well.”

Fried acknowledges that there is no exact science to choosing to close a school and that sometimes the process backfires.

“When I was a principal, our district called to close and by 9:30 a.m., the sun was out and the roads dried up,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t make that call, but things like that are bound to happen.”

Other times, like Tuesday’s snowstorm, the decision is a no-brainer.

“The second I made the cancellation, I thought it was the right decision,” he said. “Other districts stayed open and it turned out to be OK, but it seemed on the edge to me. Its better to err on the side of caution.”

He said that weather during the day is just as important as what occurs overnight.

“Based on the information I was getting, we could have probably brought the kids in on time, but I saw the potential for ice during the day,” he said. “Our middle school has a very late day, they don’t get out until 1:30 p.m., and that is too late with potentially threatening weather.”

In a winter that has seen a record snowfall in January, the issue now for the superintendent becomes how to make up the cancellation days. According to Fried, there have been suggestions of shaving days off the February and April recesses, though no decisions have been made yet. He said the Board of Education would likely discuss it at its Tuesday meeting.

Fried said that making up the days will be a challenge, but he doesn’t regret his school cancellation decisions.

“It always has to be about the safety of the children,” he said. “They have to come first.”