Metro Atlanta school systems took a wait-and-see approach Monday to the storm's overall impact, with most systems anticipating they would not have to schedule make-up days for Monday and Tuesday's cancellations of classes.
What happens beyond Tuesday will be taken as it comes. No system reported damage to their facilities. Instead, freezing temperatures coated streets with a dangerous mix of ice and snow making safe travel unlikely.
"The state allows you four emergency days in the calendar before you have to request a waiver" or reschedule the days later in the year, Atlanta Public Schools spokesman Keith Bromery said Monday, on the city system's first "weather day" of the school year.
Other systems, such as Fulton County, had lost at least a day due to severe weather prior to this week's cancellations but still looked to be OK. Fulton schools spokeswoman Susan Hale said the ultimate decision would be left up to system leaders but that parents should pay attention to local news media as well as the system's web site for any further updates.
"We're also encouraging people to get set up with Facebook and Twitter, where they can get almost instant updates," Hale said.
With Tuesday’s cancellation, Cherokee County students will have missed three days of school this year, spokeswoman Carrie Budd said.
The district doesn’t build snow days into the school year, she said, but did have two employee furlough days scheduled for March. She said the district is discussing whether to make this week’s snow days count as furlough days. Beyond that, she said school officials will have to meet to discuss how to make up the lost time.
“Those decisions haven’t been made,” she said. “We’ll have to see what the week shapes up like and see how many days we end up missing.”
Cobb County Schools spokesman Jay Dillon said the district built four snow days into its school year. So far, the district’s taken two. “It’s not an issue yet, but it is only January,” he said.
School officials will wait until Tuesday to make a decision about whether to cancel or delay Wednesday’s morning school board meeting, he said.
Children happy with a day to play in the snow braved the cold weather, laughing as they built snowmen and made snow angels. School closures forced parents with no daycare options to stay home with their kids and telecommute. Some parents even had snow days off from work.
The snow day found a metro Atlanta assistant district attorney Ayanna Sterling-Jones multi-tasking. The mother of two had one eye on a stack of criminal case files and the other on her two young children who bolted out of the door excited about having their yard turn into a winter wonderland.
“I sent the kids out to play in the snow while I work on my cases,” said Sterling-Jones, who lives in Atlanta. “I have got a trial coming up this week that got postponed due to the weather.”
Sterling-Jones worked at a table at home with a view of her yard. And in case her son, Krishna, 3, and her kindergartner Kaylinne Jones, 6, have another snow day, the prosecutor brought enough work home to last.
“There is always something I can be brushing up, like case law,” she said.
Having back-to-back snow days won’t change the calendar for Gwinnett County students. “Our calendar for this school year has three snow make-up days built into it,” schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.
-- Staff writer Nancy Badertscher contributed to this report.
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