Navigating Snow Days: Superintendent Kopp on Making Critical Weather Decisions for Franklin County Schools

Imagine waking up to a winter wonderland, only to wonder if school is still on. Superintendent Kopp shares his personal journey from childhood snow days in southern Ohio to the challenging decisions he faces today as head of Franklin County Schools. Discover the meticulous process that unfolds as early as 3:30 a.m., when Kopp, alongside Brad McKinney and Jennifer Perkins, ventures out to assess road conditions across a sprawling and diverse county. By 5 a.m., they must decide whether to declare a snow day, ensuring parents, students, and staff are informed through a range of communication channels—social media, TV, and direct calls—striking a balance between early alerts and restful sleep.

Join us as we unravel the complexities and strategies behind making these crucial calls. With safety as the guiding principle, Kopp outlines the challenges and responsibilities tied to school closure decisions and the commitment to transparency and timely communication with the One Team, FCS community. This episode promises a deeper understanding of the factors influencing these decisions and offers insights into the balance between educational obligations and the safety of students and staff. Whether you're a concerned parent, a curious student, or just someone who loves a good snow day story, tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at how Franklin County Schools navigates the winter months.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to FCS Unscripted. A new podcast for One Team, fcs, where we look at the stories behind every one in Franklin County Schools. Happy New Year to everyone in One Team, fcs, all of our staff, students and all of our parents and community members. This is Superintendent Kopp, welcoming you to the new year, and I wanted to record just a very quick podcast. This week this is actually January the 2nd 2025.

Speaker 1: 0:39

And I wanted to discuss what we do in the case of inclement weather, and I think everyone understands we could be looking at a potentially significant winter storm coming up this weekend. They're forecasting some significant weather to impact our area Sunday and Monday. While no decisions have been made yet, we do know that there is the potential for an impact. So I just wanted to kind of discuss with you all what we do and how we do it in terms of when we have to make a weather decision. The one thing I want everyone to understand is none of these decisions are easy. One of the most difficult jobs of any superintendent is to try to determine whether or not to cancel school. Superintendent is to try to determine whether or not to cancel school, and you know we always are going to try to be in school if possible, but also I want it known that I will, 100% of the time, err on the side of caution. If there's any potential chance that you know we could have bad road conditions that could impact our bus driver's ability to drive in a safe way, then you know it's a pretty easy decision, frankly, for me, and I understand that times today are very different than when we were young. I remember, as a kid growing up in southern Ohio, we would many days we would have snow on the ground and we would be going to school, and just really understanding how things are a little bit different today is important for all of us to understand. The thing to keep in mind is here in Franklin County we have a very large, geographically spread out county, so we have areas in our county that in some cases, get impacted more significantly than other areas. So what we do when we have to make a decision is we try to make the decision as early as possible. Let's say, for instance, that it's a Tuesday night and it starts snowing, and it's snowing really hard on Tuesday night and we know Monday or Wednesday will be impacted. I'll try to make that decision on Tuesday night, if I possibly can. Sometimes, though, the timing of these events doesn't occur until the first thing in the morning, or sometimes overnight On those particular days. This is what we do.

Speaker 1: 3:01

There are three of us Brad McKinney, who's our Director of transportation, jennifer Perkins, who is our assistant superintendent for operations, and she's also called our chief operations officer, and then myself. The three of us split up the county into three separate areas and we go out and we drive at 3.30 in the morning, and we have to make a decision no later than five in the morning on most cases, because, believe it or not, our first buses start up at five in the morning. They require time in the winter to warm up and our buses get going very early, so we have to make those calls by five in the morning. So we drive our sections of the county and we communicate with each other and we talk about what we see, and if the roads are unsafe, then generally, what we do at that time is we will make the decision, and I will start communicating that out via social media, our website, I put it out on the television stations, et cetera, and we also use our one call and we get that information to you all as soon as we can. Sometimes I, you know, I try to send it around 530. That seems to be kind of a sweet spot there. If I send it too early and wakes people up, they're not happy about that. If I send it too late, then people get upset about not getting it early enough. So there's really no. This is a no-win scenario in a lot of cases. Having said that, I think over communication and as early as possible is always the best bet, and I'm always just going to be honest with you all and try to do that to the best of my ability and get it to you as quickly as we can.

Speaker 1: 4:45

For this particular system that's coming up, we know that we will be impacted in some way, but the timing of the impacts, as well as the exact location and the line of where the ice starts and the rain starts and the snow starts, all of those things are still very much up in the air. So we're going to watch it very carefully over the next several days and then we will make the decisions as quickly as we possibly can. Also wanted to let everyone know that if and when we do have to cancel school due to a snow event, we will be using NTI days. We have 10 of those NTI days built into our calendar and we can use those 10 NTI days, so we will be using those, first and foremost if we have weather events, so just be prepared for that potential possibility. And, like I said, we also have ASP programs, and those ASP programs provide a wonderful service to our community. When we do have to cancel school, it allows people who do have to work a place to provide child care while our schools are closed.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Understand, though, that if the roads are too bad for our ASPs and our ASP workers to travel safely, in many of those cases we will close ASPs. I understand that that is an inconvenience, but I do have to choose safety over convenience, and I'm going to make that call 100% of the time. If the roads are passable for our ASP employees to work and we are canceled for that day, then we'll make the decision to have ASPs open. So, again, I will communicate that information with you all as soon as possible. Always look to our website and, obviously, our social media. We will put it out on Facebook, instagram, all of those different X now used to be Twitter, so we'll put that information out at as many places as we possibly can. And again, please understand that none of these decisions are easy. This is a challenging thing for us to do, but we always are going to choose safety first. Sometimes the decisions that I make here in Franklin County may be different than what they are in other districts, whether it's Frankfurt Independent or Anderson County or whatever. I have to make the best decision for the students in Franklin County. I cannot be influenced by. You know what other districts are doing or not doing, so please understand that that's my decision-making process when I have to make those decisions.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Okay, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. I just wanted to again have a brief podcast just to kind of talk to you about our weather situations and what we do. Keep these things in mind, I guess, as the takeaway from this Overcommunication as early as possible. That's what I'm going to strive to do as superintendent. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and I hope to see everyone back in school on Monday, and we will keep an eye on this weather situation and we will let everyone know as quickly as we can. I appreciate each and every one of you. Happy New Year, have a wonderful day. Well, that wraps it up for this week's episode of FCS Unscripted. Thank you for listening in and I encourage you to subscribe and follow this weekly podcast where we will share updates, information and interviews with hashtag everyone the wonderful students and staff who make up One Team FCS. Have a great week everybody.