Despite not much more than a dusting of the white stuff in the Sunshine City, Thursday was a snow day for students in Orillia and other pupils in what's known as the 'north zone' that also includes Elmvale, Midland and Penetanguishene.
The sometimes difficult decision to cancel buses for students at both the public and Catholic school board falls into the hands of the Simcoe County Student Transportation Consortium (SCSTC).
"It's a process done with great thought and consideration," said Simcoe County District School Board chair and Orillia area trustee Jodi Lloyd. "We don't want to put our students or bus drivers at risk in poor weather."
On potentially severe weather days, Lloyd says representatives from the SCSTC gather for a conference call with bus operators around 5 a.m. They aim to announce their decision by 6 a.m.
"The decision is made upon weather reports and the information they have at that time of the day," she said. "It has to be communicated quite early because we have bus drivers that need to get buses warmed up, ready to go, and out on the road."
Lloyd says the decision to cancel buses is made with "common sense."
"They consider student safety, bus safety, weather conditions and anticipated weather conditions," she said. "All of those factors are taken into account."
With Simcoe County being "as large as Prince Edward Island," weather conditions can vary drastically from one part of the county to the other, she explained.
"We used to call snow days for the entirety of the county," Lloyd said. "We have since moved to the zone system to try to address the regional differences."
Despite those zones, weather in Orillia can be quite different than weather in Midland at any given time, but Lloyd says there is a lot of overlap between where buses travel to pick up students from different schools.
"It would be very challenging to break the zones down any further because of that overlap," she explained.
Lloyd says not everybody agrees with the SCSTC when school buses are cancelled.
"The decisions are made in the best interest of the students based upon the information that's available at that time of the day," she explained. "We can all say at 9 a.m., the decision should have been different, but the decision is being made at five o'clock in the morning."
On average, Lloyd says there are four to five bus cancellations days each year.
"We can always second-guess those decisions," she said. "But they are made in the best interest of students."
Around 15 years ago, Lloyd recalls a severe weather day when buses were deployed in the morning but were unable to pick up students at the end of the day.
"We always have to consider that," she said. "We have students who require medications and students who need to get home. It's a much bigger picture and we have to assess the risk."
Schools typically remain open on snow days. Lloyd says conditions would have to be "incredibly extreme" for a school to be closed. Each school board decides on when to close schools.
"In my 10 years as trustee I can only remember it happening once or twice," she said. "It's very rare."
Lloyd says it's important for schools to remain open on snow days despite potentially dangerous road conditions.
"We learned during the pandemic how important schools being open is to families," she said. "We still have many students who get dropped off by their parents on those days."
Kim Malkamaki, the chief executive officer and general manager for the SCSTC, declined to comment for this article.
Instead, she provided a link to where you can read more about how snow day decisions are made. More information about bus cancellations and the SCSTC can be found here.
