Most metro Atlanta schools decided to play it safe and tell students to stay home Tuesday for a day off or a day of virtual learning as frigid temperatures and the chance for wintry weather approached the area.
Local governments largely did the same, closing courthouses and city and county offices while also opening warming centers and shelters — Cobb even pretreated bridges prone to ice.
Tuesday morning didn’t deliver a repeat of the 2014 Snowpocalypse, with little-to-no freezing precipitation around Atlanta and somewhat lighter-than-usual traffic on the area’s oft-congested roads. As of Tuesday afternoon, the streets showed similar conditions.
Wednesday’s outlook is unclear for much of the area. Forecasts show dry days but continued cold. Gov. Brian Kemp warned Georgians to watch for black ice.
Warming centers and shelters that were opened Tuesday will remain open, but only a few government offices and school districts have announced plans. Clayton County Public Schools will implement a virtual learning day, so students and teachers will not report to schools. Cobb County’s school district said it would return to a normal schedule Wednesday and advised parents to monitor an app allows them to track a student’s bus in real-time, so kids can remain indoors until the bus draws near. Gwinnett’s superintendent said in a letter to parents Tuesday afternoon that the district doesn’t expect any closures or delays the rest of the week.
Some school districts held remote learning Tuesday while others did not. Districts received a wintry mix of praise and criticism for their choices Tuesday.
“I’m glad (City Schools of Decatur) made the call not to have school, but I think it’s fairly ridiculous that we have virtual school today,” parent Amanda Styles told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on social media. “The scrambling that our fourth grade teacher had to do last night so that my child can spend the day on her Chromebook doesn’t feel like a good use of resources. We have snow days built in to the calendar. We should use them.”
For the most part, residents shared appreciation for the cautious approach. Better safe than sorry was a prevailing sentiment, fueled by disaster scenarios from recent memory.
Mark Waters, a former administrator in northwest Georgia’s Gordon County, recalled sending kids home early after a midday snowfall years ago. “(We), the administrator staff, stayed by the phones and bus radios sweating and worrying about our kids and their safety as they drove and rode home,” he said. “We also had teachers and staff with 4-wheel-drive vehicles taking students home because their parents were stuck or had no way of getting them.”
Waters said that experience was instructive. “From that day on I never questioned the decision to be safe and overly cautious. A day can be made up.”
News about closures was still rolling in early morning Tuesday: Forsyth County Schools was the last district to announce schools would be closed, posting an announcement on social media at 5:24 a.m.
That left just a few outliers, notably Gwinnett County. The school district, Georgia’s largest, operated as usual and didn’t announce any issues. Similarly, county government offices stayed open.
Gwinnett’s post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Monday night had nothing to do with weather but drew more than 160 responses. Most appeared to be students begging for a cancellation. Some cited slick roads. At least one cited the opportunity to play video games.
Tyler Lee, a junior at Peachtree Ridge High School, said he was more frustrated that the district didn’t announce that it planned to operate as usual. Lee became known at school last year as someone who could get answers after he helped bring a high-level administrator in to address controversy over internet access on student devices. So when students were unsure Monday night if they needed to get ready for school, he fielded a couple dozen messages asking him to reach an administrator for news. Lee said Gwinnett has a reputation for always being the last to make weather-related announcements, leading people to wait up for information.
But that never came.
“Just let us know,” Lee said on Tuesday, adding that parents rely on updates from the district to inform childcare arrangements.
Gwinnett’s website states: “The superintendent makes the decision about school closing based on a cross-divisional and cross-agency effort, with information from public safety officials, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, Gwinnett County officials and the state Department of Transportation.” Staff will be on roads as early as 3:30 a.m. before school to assess conditions.
Superintendent Calvin Watts laid out the emergency weather procedure in a letter to parents, saying announcements about weather-related closings would come 6 a.m. at the latest. “In some unique circumstances, we may decide earlier or even the evening prior,” Watts said.
Despite school running as usual, Lee said, “it was a snow day in my heart.” He took the day off and said many others in Gwinnett did the same — seeing their peers across metro Atlanta get a free day or a virtual learning day made it hard to get motivated for school.
Staff writers Cassidy Alexander, Greg Bluestein, Taylor Croft and Leon Stafford contributed to this report.
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