We would like to provide some clarification about calling virtual school days so early and why this is happening in connection to student learning. We wanted to explain why this is happening. We are required as a school district to provide a certain number of student hours, each year we try to include some additional hours in our school calendar to allow for inclement weather delays and or cancellations. This year we had to use some of those built-in hours at the beginning of the year to allow time for our teachers and staff to prepare and adapt to virtual and hybrid learning as these options have not been provided before in our district. Due to this fact, we are not left with as many hours to use for inclement weather, however, we are fortunate enough to have the option to call a virtual learning day when the weather forecast is predicting that we will not be able to offer a full day of in-person learning for our students. This allows us to provide a full day of virtual learning so that our students will not have to make up additional days at the end of the school year. Please know that if there is hope that we will be able to safely get our students to and from school to complete most of the school day we will try to do this, by having our buses on hard surface roads, calling a 2-hour delay, or having an early dismissal. Also, please keep in mind that West Liberty School District is very unique in regard to programs, and learning models compared to other close proximity school districts.
This decision is not made lightly and many factors and people are involved in this process, including but not limited to; weather predictions, temperature, wind chill, road conditions, WLCSD Transportation, direct reports from the National Weather Service in our area, and consultation with surrounding school districts. In the end, a decision is made to ensure the safety of our students and staff.