GAEL Unscripted S2:E10 | Cancel School? The Forecast says "You're Facebook Famous"! Part #2 with Mitch Young

Ever wonder what really drives a snow day decision? We pull back the curtain with Superintendent Dr. Mitch Young to map the real playbook behind closures and delays—from scanning multiple forecast models to walking buildings at dawn and keeping a community’s economy in mind. The stakes go far beyond “school’s out”: buses must start, roads must be safe end to end, power has to hold for heat and meals, and nearly half the staff may be commuting from other counties facing different conditions.

We share how a focused inner circle—safety, transportation, facilities, communications, and the chief of staff—meets in tight, frequent check‑ins, translating shifting data into clear choices. Relationships power the process: utility providers offer restoration timelines, the hospital flags workforce pinch points, county leadership and the sheriff align messaging, and neighboring superintendents compare conditions so families don’t get mixed signals across district lines. Instead of chasing social media’s clock, we commit to accuracy, a predictable communication order, and transparent reasoning, so principals, the board, staff, and families all know what’s happening and why.

The toughest call might surprise you: reopening. Conditions rarely improve evenly; shaded hills and back roads can lag days behind. We talk through how to return the safe majority while directly supporting families on inaccessible routes with targeted communication and online options. You’ll also hear how our team captured lessons from a first-year storm into a simple SOP and a short explainer video, turning chaos into a repeatable process. If you care about student safety, instructional time, and a community that can plan with confidence, this candid breakdown will change how you see the next forecast.

If this was helpful, follow the show, share it with a friend who leads in schools or local government, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome back, Gail family, to another exciting episode of Gail Unscripted. Once again, we have Dr. Mitch Young, Superintendent of Forsyth County Schools, with us. He was with us earlier for a podcast on leadership development. And it just so happened the day that he was here in Athens doing that podcast. It was January 21st, and we were talking about the upcoming weather storm that we were going to have the next weekend. And I said, bitch, would you mind doing a podcast just talking about superintendents and weather decisions? It's one of those things they don't teach you in superintendent school. I don't even remember us talking about it in district office P. D. with Keith Porter. Keith needs to add that on there. Without question. So let's just talk about it a little bit. And again, some of our members may not have been with us on that first podcast. So just briefly introduce yourself, let them know who you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, my name is Mitch Young. Uh I'm superintendent of schools in Forsyth County, Georgia. I am in year 1.6 at at this point. You're a veteran. So I yeah, I'm I'm definitely grizzled. I'm not sure if I'm a veteran or grizzled, but but ironically, it was uh one year ago, almost to the week, one year ago, that as a new superintendent with three out of five brand new board members, we were at the Carl Vinson Institute here uh at on UGA's campus. And um while we were here, the winter winds were blowing. And so to your point, having not lived through being the superintendent for a snow day, my very first one was with a brand new communications director and a brand new board of eds sitting in the room with me uh in downtown Athens as I tried to figure out how to navigate my first one.

From Principal Lens To District Reality

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So that was Well, I'll tell you, new superintendents, if they don't already have a strong understanding of the importance of a communications person in their district, they will on the first weather without question. Emergency won't think. So let's talk about weather. One of those things that they don't teach us about when we're getting ready for this. Talk to us about how maybe you were prepared to make some of those decisions before becoming superintendent. Uh you went from the principal chair to working at the district office. So did you have uh uh a little bit of time there, some on-the-job training, too? So a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I mean, you know, as a principal, you're you're thinking about how it impacts you from that from that side of things. You know, you've you've got teams that are scheduled to go or not go. You've got some folks that are gone on a trip. Do you tell them to come back, or do you tell them, hey, mom and dad, we're gonna chip in some some school funds here, but we're gonna tell them to stay. You know, and so you think about it from that one lens, so you do think about snow days, not to mention the the you know the academic side of it of making sure your teachers, you know, they're online learning, all that. The district level, you're it it it it's a whole different you know, it's a it's a whole broader sort of view that you've got on it. And uh as deputy superintendent, uh I had an office two doors down from the superintendent, and he was phenomenal. Jeff Beard would bring me in and you know, and help me see the inner workings that he was really preparing me for this job. And I'll just tell you, I don't think there's anything he could have said or done, or any notes I could have taken that would have made me prepared uh a year ago to to handle that first snow day. I mean, I just I the the most important thing I think probably that I learned from from being in proximity to him was that we've got a phenomenal leader in our safety department named Todd Shirley, who has been doing it for a long time. And as you said at the beginning, uh we've got Dr. Michelle Dugan, who's our comms director, our comms chief, and um and she's phenomenal. So with those two people at my side, uh I think we could we we we can we can handle it this time.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So there's a good point right there, Yale members, baby. You're a new superintendent or you're gonna be a superintendent in the future. One of those things is identifying, do you have a communications person? If you have a communications person, have you empowered them to be in the lead on some of that information to help you making those decisions? And do you have someone what did you say the position is for the for the gentleman you mentioned?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

So our our uh our chief of student uh safety and support. Yeah, he he he's he's over that. Uh uh Todd Shirley, uh well respected throughout the state, uh Dr. Michelle Dugan, um, and then my chief of staff, the four of us probably well, I I say the four of us huddle uh initially. Yeah but and I don't want to get into the weeds or get ahead of you if we're gonna go there, but but along with with those three folks, then our chief of transportation and our facilities chief, that that's sort of the inner weather circle.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Uh you know, and and you know, at the end of the day, we're it's a team effort, but somebody's gotta make the call at the end, and that's that's every year I've learned where I become Facebook famous with our families.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

You become very famous if you can cancel school or not cancel school. It's it's uh but I think it's important you talk about that team and you're you're empowering that team to gather information, meet with you, keep you abreast, and you're not out there just trying to do it by yourself. Yeah, for sure. Let's let's let's talk through it. We're sitting here, it's January 21st. Uh we're a few days away from the weekend coming, expecting some bad weather. What what does that look like at Forsyth County School Districts? Yeah. Talk us through that process.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

For sure. Our our safety team, and I talk about Todd Shirley, he's the chief of student support and safety, but his team, they'll they'll but they've got four different uh weather services that they're constantly analyzing. You know, we've got our Perry weather system, and so our contacts with that, uh, the National Weather Service. I think what people fail to realize sometimes, uh we we've got a board member. Let me just let me do a side note here. Uh a board member, Chris Grimes, um, who who worked with our local uh emergency services, and then Gima, who's on the board, and he brought this point up last night publicly at our board meeting, uh, which is which is so important for people to understand is that you don't look at just one weather model. There's three or four different models of weather that your national service is tracking and your and your local weather experts are tracking. So we're looking at everything. Um sometimes a little overwhelming, but but our guys have been doing it so long that you know that they so ever we'll we'll talk uh today, for instance, we'll talk a couple of times today. Tomorrow we'll probably talk three to four times throughout the day, and um and just trying to do the best that we can to see what what's coming at us based on the based on the scientists.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah. And uh the information's changing every day. And remind our listeners again, who all is on that team? You mentioned your cabinet.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, so so that the the members of our safety are our our chief of student safety and support, our communications director, uh, our chief of staff, our facilities director or chief, and our transportation. Yeah. Those are those are all the folks that that are directly in my if you may feel like, hey, it's not gonna be that bad, but if the buses won't start, well, then you get out of school. You may think it's not that bad, but you find out that you got pipes bursting or a a frozen parking lot here or there. All right, that's not gonna work. So that the these folks, you know, on the eve of a of an event, uh, you know, we'll have folks working 24 hours a day that are out there uh scouring the roads, scouring the buildings, scouring the parking lots. Um you know, that's just what we do internally, and there's a lot of things we do externally.

Multi‑Model Forecasting And Check‑Ins

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, I think even um uh sometimes even our principals and our our teachers and staff, they don't they don't know all the behind the scenes work that's going on. They don't know that that facilities and transportation director are out there looking at buildings in the middle of the night, early in the morning, they're driving the roads, all of those things. Um you mentioned your communications person, uh Dr. Michelle Dugan, is it? Yeah. Um being on your cabinet. I yeah, you know, I think we're seeing more and more of that across the state. Superintendents having their communications person as a part of their cabinet because that position is becoming so important as the years continue. Um so talk about what does that communications team play in this process? What does Michelle have to do?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, so uh, you know, Michelle has been a teacher in our system, she's been an assistant principal in our system, um, she's worked in human resources one time. She's got a unique set of lenses um that set her up to be a really effective communications uh chief because uh because she's had those positions, she knows she knows what people need to hear, you know, in a variety of things. And she's a parent in our system, was a teacher in our system one time. So understanding uh you know, not that you have a different message for each group, but understanding the timeliness and and the tone and and you know when and how to reach out. Um but the other thing that she's you know, we uh we joke about this, we sort of developed this under fire last year with our board members in the room with us, but there was not a real spelled-out process. And Michelle kept every email, every note that she took during last year's snow days, and kind of turned it into a standard operating procedure, as standard as you can be with a fluid situation like this. And um so there is a time of day that that that if we're gonna have an event that we're gonna call it, she's gonna let the principals know first. Um I'm gonna let the board know while she lets the principals know. Um then she's gonna let the you know, I'm gonna let the cabinet know while she's putting a thing out to you know the teachers. And then we get those groups knocked off and then we blast that because what we we don't want is for any of our employees to find out on social media before they hear it from us. Yeah. Now they may not answer their text or their you know, receive it on their email, but but we want to at least you know so we're always gonna try to prep the principals most importantly ahead of everybody because they're the mayors of their little villages. And um so she developed a process for that um that that now it's it's plug and play. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

I think that's a great point, Gail members, whether you're in a position now or the future position, you heard Mitch talk about they he's communicating to the cabinet while Michelle's communicating to the principals, you're also communicating to the board, and then you communicate to the parents. And I I think you hit on an important part. I think our the staff they do. They want to know um before everyone else knows.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Well, and and part of it is, yeah, you you want to let them know, but but even more important than just giving them the early scoop, they're gonna get questions. Yeah. You know, their their neighbors are gonna have questions why this or why that. So we try to get them the full benefit of our thinking with you know some bullet points as to why you know informed approach to answering them.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Because they are. They're getting uh it's January 21st, and your teachers are getting uh uh people are trying to contact them today through emails and text and in the neighborhood and at the grocery store. They want to know are we are we open on Monday or not? When when is Mitch Young gonna make a decision on this weather? What factors are you looking at in this decision? Like power at your schools, power in the community, the roads, the butt what are the things that y'all are looking at?

Communications Chain And SOP

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Well, you know, at the other podcast we talk about the importance of relationships. Um and so this is where your your relationships are so important, you know, not necessarily talking about with our teachers and our parents at this point, but building relationships with Georgia Power and Sonny Electric, who are two, you know, our two power partners. Um having communications with them to stay in the forefront of what's going on. Um we have a a really large hospital that employs folks. Uh they employ folks from our county and outside of the county. So staying in touch with with the CEO, you know, Lynn Jackson of Northside Hospital for Scythe. Um, our our county manager who you know who runs the operations for the county, and our sheriff. Two very important relationships that we try to make sure that we're in touch with each other throughout a a winter event, you know, or a snow event, just so that we're all on the same page as well as we as as much as we possibly can be. Um and and when you have a a unified message, um it it's a stronger message. You know, and it and it and it shows everybody that hey, we we've we've all collectively thought through everything on this. Yeah, I think. And so those relationships are huge, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Very smart. You know all the the the important players in the community involved. Uh because I know uh a hospital, it it impacts their staff if you decide to close school.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

You know, um because now their employees have got to staff.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Those doctors and nurses have kids at home and and yeah, it it it it's a tough that's why that's why you and I joked off off air a little bit ago about waiting to that last possible minute. Um trying to keep your schools open is something that we learned during the pandemic that our kids need to be in school as much as you possibly can have them there so long as it's safe. Um but our community for the I mean we're we're we're this is this is where the we're part of an economic driver as well. And and your working families need to be at work. And so we do never ever do not want to want to put anybody's safety at risk. But to be able to make that call as accurate as you can, to not as fast as what some parents would like.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, I think that's a great point uh for our communities to know and also our employees in the school district to know. You're you're as superintendent and your team, you're balancing all of that information. And you're trying to do what's best for the kids, but you also are trying to do what's best for their parents in the business community. Play an important part in that economic engine because when we decide to close, that means parents can't go to work. Or a large number of them. How does your relationship work with the local emergency services? You you talked about your board member used to be there.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

How does that work? For for sure. Well, it again, it's in in that chain of of relationships that we have, or in that network of relationships we have, I mean it's it's vital. And so that would be a relationship between our our safety chief and and our local emergency chiefs. Um they're they're in constant communication when when something like this is happening. Yeah, we we all sort of operate at our levels of the of the you know your organizational hierarchy. But the more conversations you have, yeah, the the the more on the same page we are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

And as far as the power companies you mentioned, is that one person on your cabinet or facilities making most of that contact?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

You know, actually in the case of the of the power companies, those are those are uh some personal relationships I've developed that that I'll be I'll actually be in touch with those. Um and when I can't, our chief of staff, Josh Lowe will be. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

That's good. Um ideally, you know, sometimes with these weather situations, you you can't do this, but how far in advance do you like to inform parents if you're gonna have to close school? Let's let's take a midweek um weather emergency. Let's say it's a a Tuesday morning, you're watching some impending weather come, whether it's tornadoes or what. In an ideal situation, uh, what time of day do you prefer to inform those parents and businesses, hey, we're we're we're gonna have to be closed tomorrow.

What Parents Want To Know And When

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Well, okay. Before I answer that, let me go back. You asked the question about the power company. Yeah. Matt Wark is our chief of facilities. To be fair, and Matt will watch this. Yeah. Matt is probably the first contact with the power company. So I want to I want to make sure I clarify that because Matt will wear me out if I say that. But our our our two local, you know, our two local power company bosses, I'll I'll be in touch with too. But I do want to clarify that. You're talking to them twice a day, maybe talking to them twenty a day. Yeah. And I'd I'd be remiss if I didn't clarify that. But in terms of making the decision, um one, we're gonna we're gonna make the best possible decision with all the different factors that go into that. Those factors being um can we get your children to and from school safely based on the roads? Can we get the buses rolling? Do we have power at our schools? Um and and you know, one that most people don't consider, but forty percent of our teachers, or almost forty percent, live outside of our county. I say our teachers, our our our staff, you know, teachers. You've got to be able to get to work. They gotta be able to get there. And so if any one of those factors, you know, if you've got no no power, uh you're not providing heat, but you're also not providing lunches and breakfasts. Um if you don't have people, you can't can't open the cafeteria or you can't open the classrooms and subs are the same way. So so those are all the different factors that you've got to take into consideration, and that's why it's so important, we can talk about this in a minute, but that you have connections with those superintendents in surrounding counties because that's where your your people live sometimes. Um But what we tell our parents is at the absolute latest, we'll let them know by 5 30 a.m. on the morning of a of an event, of a weather event. Would I like to be able to let them know the night before? Absolutely. And when I don't let them know the way before the night before, I am lit up on social media. Cost of doing business, I realize. But it it's because weather patterns can change rapidly. And the last thing you want to do is keep kids out of school when they yeah, when they when they could have been there. That's right. Um so it you know, an event that we anticipate coming up. Now we'll look back at this whenever this airs, and um we may look back at this and be like, oh, you know, it wasn't, but it seems pretty imminent that something's coming. Yeah. So when it's imminent, it it's much easier to go through your process. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

But uh, do you think a weekend helps? Like it's it's coming and supposed to start on Saturday and Sunday, as opposed to being a a Tuesday. Does the weekend kind of help by a little time?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I think it I I would say yes, but I also can remember 2014 when we were all certain that it wasn't gonna come in till that I think it was Monday night.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

We were we were pretty certain of that. I I may have the day wrong. And it hit about ten o'clock that morning, and we had the chaos all over the Atlanta area. That's right. And um you know, so I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna take anything lightly. Yeah. So uh yeah, it would be great if it would if it would hit on Saturday. I uh you know, my prayers are just don't don't hit while we're while we're trying to get buses on the road Friday afternoon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

I think uh the important part to our our leaders out there, especially our new leaders and aspiring leaders, is you know the weather does change. And so what you're hearing Mitch say is that he and his team are trying to get the most updated information they can, uh timely information so they can make the best decisions that they can. Uh once you do decide to close, okay, this is whatever tornadoes are coming, ISIS. We have decided with the uh latest information from the experts that we need to close. Who do you contact outside of the school district? You you mentioned you've got a lot of relationships you're talking to, the hospital, but are there daycares, businesses, how how do you or do you let your social media just handle it?

Community Partnerships And Unified Messaging

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So yeah, so it'll it'll go out through our through parent portal, so that that'll be pushed out to parents. It'll it'll go on all of our school websites and all that, of course. Um it goes out to all of our Atlanta area news networks, um our local news, you know, for Scythe County News Online. So social media, uh, you know, all the all the things, right? All the ways that we that we communicate. Um But then then as I said with with all of our partner organizations, our partner governing organizations, obviously they'll be made aware right out of the gate. As soon as I'm done with the board and our district staff, and Michelle is working with you know with hers, then um then I'll be in touch with all of our you know all of our our colleagues and associates and all those places, the hospital, the the private school, uh, you know, all all of our all of our friends in the you know in the in the in the local for scythe area.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

We were talking off air and both of us in our experience and everywhere I'm I'm aware of, you know, the normally the local private school always follows what the public school is doing. So they they kind of abdicate the uh having to make that decision and just follow what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, my pal Jake at Pine Pinecrest Academy, he he takes great pride in knowing that I'm gonna take the I'm gonna take the hints and he's just yeah, so we got a lot of changes in superintendent seats.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

It just seems like there's more and more retirements and people leaving, new superintendents. You mentioned that a year ago, uh fresh uh on your start, you were making a weather decision with your board there at a retreat. Well talk about

SPEAKER_01 22:00

uh that communication and why it's important to keeping your board informed while you and your cabinet and leadership team are going through the for certain because uh you know in our community and I think any community where you have highly engaged parents they're gonna want answers immediately you know and and you know whenever you have a situation at our schools you know whether it's a a threat or something else I I always have to remind families that we don't operate on social media's timeline we operate on a timeline of being accurate and making sure we have all the facts right um in a situation like this I want to make sure that our principals our district staff um our teachers and our board right up front our board because these are the ones that are going to be fielding the questions and and our board members are they they are highly engaged with our community and uh well respected looked upon and they're gonna get as many phone calls uh from their constituents as our principals or myself or whatever will get I want to make sure they have the the the why behind the what as well as the what so that they're you know prepared to answer those questions.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Perfect news superintendents aspiring superintendents that's why it's important to keep your board informed just like Mitch said they're they're getting phone calls, they're getting texts. They can be a great conduit of information if you give them the information that they can share. The last thing they want or you want or need is for them to say I'm not sure what the superintendent's going to do next. So great point there. You know it's one let's talk about this Michelle with communications um like it's Wednesday right now bad storms coming in this weekend. When will Michelle maybe begin pushing out any information related to the story?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Yeah so one of one of the things we we did after last year and you might say it's in reaction to you know social media you're not gonna change people people that want to be upset are going to choose to be upset. But um last year I put a letter out um at the time of our first event kind of explaining how the how this process works. People people aren't going to take the time to not all people are going to take the time to read a letter but we live in the course yeah we live in a we live in a visual age and and so what what Michelle and her staff did this year which I thought was great was they put together a video in which we explain how this process works, what it looks like all the factors that we take in there and that actually got pushed out last night. Oh you know and um is that was that just pushed out internally like your whip song so it was i it probably is on our website now and it should be because it was it was shown at the board meeting um but that would that was pushed out to all of our all of our stakeholders in Forsyth County yeah another great thing Gail members uh I go check out Forsyth County school system see if you can find that video uh it'd be a great thing you may pick up on some tidbits that could help you.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Now you make a decision to close school you do all the communication. Of course now sometimes I tell new superintendents now the big question is well when are you going back? So talk through that process.

Criteria For Closing And Reopening

SPEAKER_01 25:08

And it and and you first thing they want to know do you just hit dead on what what I thought last year the hard decision would be made to to close or not close I quickly learned that that was the easy one. That the harder one is deciding when to come back because you may have clear roads and 85% of your you know of your community but you've got those those areas that are shaded or you know up in the hills or where where have you in back roads that are still frozen. And so that becomes a much more difficult decision trying to decide when to go back. And quite frankly what what we learned last year is that where you just can't get everybody back that you need to and if there happens to be a road or two that buses can't get to we'll reach out directly to those parents and say listen we don't want to put anybody at risk. We're not sending buses to your road today. Your teachers, your children's teachers are aware of this so there'll be an online learning option for that. There'll be time to make that work up but um but but we're gonna come back and it's just we we just we we don't want to hold up the other 85% because of you know the the 15%. Now that that might be a stretch the percentage wise on that but but point point being is there's not going to be a perfect situation if you waited for every every ice cube to melt you know we'd we'd be out until March.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Well I think that's uh a great point you bring up you know it's uh it's amazing those transportation directors they know the roads that are historically the they already know your transportation he he or she knows exactly which roads which routes are going to be issues um so those those are great points that you make um when your team you know those factors about making that decision um talk to our listeners a little bit about you know because the rest of the school district staff they they're at home they're hopefully they've got power and they're watching Netflix and they're whatever talk to them about what your team is doing that day on that off day as far as the schools the property and the roads again we talked about it on the front end at the beginning but now we're in the storm.

Outreach Beyond Schools And Media

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yeah no I mean it's it's just it's it's regularly scheduled constant communication um and so what what I mean by that is we'll we'll have um standing teams time meetings that we'll get together and talk through the latest status. So our transportation will give a report facilities will give a report um ultimately after those come in then our then our our student safety and support uh chief will will give his report and uh what he's hearing from the weather services and everything else so we'll we'll meet in in teams or if we all happen to be able to make it into the district office then we'll meet in person but generally it's gonna be a teams meeting and we'll review all the same things that we you know that we've just articulated. We'll do that like I said two, three times uh throughout the day in between those times I'm talking in in my case to our metro area uh superintendent colleagues as well as to those who are not in that reset but that are direct neighbors or or where we get a lot of our our staff from and I'll be talking to them about their conditions there as well. And um you know and then we'll it it in essence is going through the same process until we get back.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah great point. So again new superintendents or aspiring superintendents out there you're you're hearing all these steps that are having to go on so Mitch is going to have people if they have to close for a potential ice storm that that day that everybody else is at home, he's got somebody's got to walk basically every square inch of that school looking for pipes, looking for issues, making sure about the power, riding the road so and and he's getting that information all day from his leadership team to help him make uh the most accurate decision for the following day. Well it's it just continues.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah this is where where people don't don't kind of realize behind the scenes where your principals are you know are 240 day employees for us and are head custodians. And and so and unless it's like in an ICE situation which we may have which changes you know changes a lot of it uh safety wise but but w those those principals are expected to if by by all means possible get to the to the building with their head custodian to do exactly what you just described to be walking that school to be looking for burst pipes to be checking the the HVAC units outside. None of them have HVAC training I'm sure principal wise but they can spot a uh a you know a a cloud of smoke or a you know a puddle of water and um so they're doing that and um we'll we'll actually have teams meetings on each day with our principals as check-ins as well just to find out what's going on at their school, how their online learning systems are working, you know in an ice storm we also need people to just exercise common sense and if if kids have no power it we we've got to trust that they're not lying and we got to have to you have built in makeup time for for that work to get done when they when they get back to school.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

A lot of considerations to take Gale members the aspiring principals and aspiring superintendents. This is all part of uh what you know back when you're a a teacher and you just think oh I wonder if we're gonna be off tomorrow or not but there's a lot of uh hard decisions and a lot of uh working together with a lot of different entities not just in the school district but outside well Mitch thank you aspiring superintendents will really get a lot out of this to help them become to come up with a plan. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode we really appreciate you and uh look forward to seeing you in the future thanks thanks for having me thanks Ben