Some local schools dismiss class early

Several of Garland County’s public school districts dismissed Thursday due to the possibility of severe weather from the remnants of Hurricane Laura.

“We’ve got a lot of rural areas, a lot of rural roads that have low-water crossings. When we get a lot of heavy rain in a short amount of time, those roads flood and we can’t get kids home,” Melissa Speers, Jessieville School District superintendent, said.

“So that’s one of the reasons, and then the other reason is the amount of wind that they are talking about coming in. (When) you get wind gusts of 50-plus mph, that can be dangerous on a bus,” she said.

Fountain Lake School District

Superintendent Michael Murphy said due to the warnings that had been put in place, the time frame and the uncertainty around when the most severe weather would be hitting, the district found it necessary to get the students safely home and allow the families and employees to get home before the arrival of the remnants of Hurricane Laura.

Mountain Pine School District Superintendent Bobby Applegate said that the district was looking at the rain and the high winds that were coming in, and decided to dismiss early at 1 p.m., noting that there are places in the area that flood easily.

“We wanted to beat the storm before it gets here,” he said.

Speers said the district has not canceled school for today, noting that she will make that decision based on outages and whether the roads are passable.

“If we have power and if our roads are passable and we can get kids to school, we’re going to have kids in school. If not, our teachers are preparing for the event of a virtual day. They’re already preparing for that. So, we will have school; it just might be virtual,” she said.

Murphy said that if the district decides to cancel school today, it will be because of the possible power outages and flooding.

“I think (Thursday), I based this decision off of us being in a tropical storm warning zone and the predictability of what that might hold,” he said.

The district will be looking at wind damages, flooding and the roads to see if it will affect the bus routes and students being able to attend school, Murphy said.

“So, that will be kind of where we will turn our attention as a team as far as Garland County superintendents. That’s the type of discussion we’ll be having early in the morning based on how long this thing is going to last,” he said.

“It seems to be moving fairly quickly, which could benefit the flooding component. If it’s moving too fast, it’ll increase wind speed turbulence to the degree that we could have more damage,” Murphy said.

“I’m not a weatherman. I’m just doing the best I can to listen to the sources available to us. Garland County does a pretty good job (of) keeping us posted on the latest weather conditions,” he said.

Applegate said that canceling school today will depend on conditions.

“If we have a lot of flooding, then yes, we’re going to be in school, but we won’t be on the bus routes. If we don’t have electricity, then we won’t be here,” he said.

Applegate said that the district had all the teachers go ahead and prepare students to work from home. If the school does not have classes, the students and teachers will have Zoom if they have electricity and are able to.

Speers said the district would hope that the students will have power before the weekend is over, so they could have their work completed. If not, the school will deal with that on Monday.

“We’ll give them an extension on Monday as the situation develops, and we see what’s happening. Thankfully, this is coming in on a Friday, and so we may have the weekend to work on it,” she said.

Murphy said that individuals should be smart and charge devices while they still have power. If they have access to a generator, check it and be safe.

“Look at all of those things you do as an individual family from the school’s perspective. All we can do is encourage them to take the necessary precautions because I think each family situation is different based on where they live. All of that is just done on an individual basis,” he said.

“If we had long-term power outages, we may have to revisit our ability to even have school and then how it would affect the individual students based on outages in certain areas,” Murphy said.

“With us doing virtual instruction for the first time to this level, we would have to just evaluate the overall impact before I could even predict how we would react to it,” he said.

“The Hot Springs School District made the decision to have a full day of classes on Thursday because leadership felt that it was in the best interest of students,” Adriane Barnes, Hot Springs School District’s communications and public relations coordinator, said.

“We know that all schools are doing their best to make the safest and best decisions possible right now — facing unprecedented challenges of all kinds. If heavy rain or other weather-related events created an unsafe situation for HSSD students at any time, school would be released and we would communicate that with parents,” she said.

“We have canceled all after school athletic events and practices, and we are ending our after school extended care at elementary schools at 4 p.m.,” Barnes said.