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Carolina Curious: How Do Schools Decide When To Cancel Classes for Weather?

Children in Winston-Salem play in the snow after a winter storm in December 2018. KERI BROWN/WFDD

Many Triad parents were greeted with a flurry of messages Wednesday announcing weather-related changes to school schedules.  

Listener John Dillard has received these kinds of alerts many times since his daughter enrolled in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. But, he says, he still doesn't understand how that decision is made. 

“There doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to it. They'll be calling for a certainty of sleet or ice or frozen precipitation. But we anticipate it to be mild and they won't delay or cancel school," he says. "And then the very next circumstance will be similar [and] they'll completely cancel school or jump the gun in going on a delay. And it just doesn't seem to be any consistency to the matter.”

In this edition of Carolina Curious, WFDD looks into who determines when school gets canceled and why. 

It turns out, there's not just one snow-

April Laissle is a senior reporter and editor at WFDD. Her work has been featured on several national news programs and recognized by the Public Media Journalists Association and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Before joining WFDD in 2019, she worked at public radio stations in Ohio and California.

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