Throughout the school year we may encounter some difficult weather conditions. The safety of our children is our first priority and we would like to make sure that everyone is informed of what to do.

First of all, please make sure that your child is dressed appropriately for winter weather conditions. As you are well aware, weather conditions in this part of the country can change easily throughout the course of the day. Even if your child is riding the bus, please make sure they are dressed for winter.

Secondly, we are somewhat reluctant to dismiss school early once the day has begun unless impending weather conditions merit that decision. The main reason is that many parents have already made arrangements to have someone meet their child at home at the regular dismissal time, or they have made arrangements at the various bus stops at the regular time. We will only dismiss school early as the last resort due to extreme weather conditions. When we dismiss early, parents may not get the announcement in time or are forced to make additional arrangements later in the day after receiving that early dismissal announcement. We want to make sure that every child is safe and has a place to go after school and is not left unattended.

Thirdly, there may be days when fog, ice, snow or extreme cold causes school to be delayed or canceled. Conditions may also necessitate the need to implement Snow Route plans. Prior to making that decision, communication takes place with the transportation director, area superintendents, and possibly the highway department or emergency response officials. We do our best to make a decision between 5a.m. and 6a.m. in order to notify various media and taking into account the time it takes to get our buses rolling. Once the decision to delay or cancel school, or implement snow route plans, has been made, the various media are contacted.

Additionally, District #100 now utilizes a mass communication tool called “AlertNow”. Through the use of AlertNow, we are able to send out instant phone messages to parents announcing school cancellations, delays or upcoming events. To make sure your phone number(s) are included in our AlertNow broadcasts, please contact the office at your student’s school.

Our cancellation information is carried on:

Radio

Peoria-WMBD 1470 AM; WPGB 93.3 FM

Kewanee-WKEI 1450 AM; WYEC 93.9 FM; WJRE 102.5 FM

Galesburg-WGIL 1400 AM; WAAG 95 FM;

Television

WHOI Channel 19-Peoria

WEEK Channel 25-Peoria

WMBD Channel 31-Peoria

KWOC Channel 6-QuadCities

WQAD Channel 8-QuadCities

Fourthly, school days that are cancelled will normally be made up through the use of emergency days. Please see your district calendar for the dates of these emergency days.

In conclusion, we value the educational importance of students attending school on a regular and consistent basis. However, the safety of each child is first and foremost and will continue to be. If weather conditions warrant the delay, early release or cancellation of school, that decision will then be made. On the other hand, we do live in a climate that includes fog, snow, ice and cold weather. We will try to advise students and those that drive of adverse weather conditions and potentially difficult routes. However, as a parent, if you believe travel is too dangerous, you do have the right to keep your child home and excuse him/or her for the day, or tell that driving student to leave his/her car at home/school and to take the bus, or for that student to get a ride with a parent or other adult.

Snow Routes

The weather last winter reminded us that we need some back-up plans for when main roads become impassable.   Last year we found travel on many of our “back roads”, to be particularly difficult for our buses. The freezing and thawing, in some cases, prevented snow plows from opening up back roads and in other cases, made bus travel almost impossible.  As a back-up plan for days when back roads are impassable, the district is now introducing a SNOW ROUTE PLAN.  On days when highways are clear, but back roads may be too ice/snow covered or too soft for buses to travel, we are going to give parents of students who live on these roads a better option for getting their children to school.

On days when you are notified that we are attending school under the SNOW ROUTE PLAN, bus students who live on Rt. 17, Rt. 91, Rt. 93 and Rt. 78 will not be significantly affected.  However, parents of other bus students will be asked to transport their children to one of the following drop off points in order to ride a bus to school:

Let me first assure you that we do not plan to implement the Snow Route Plan unless exceptional, ongoing conditions warrant doing so.  Secondly, please keep in mind that if you feel the weather conditions are too dangerous to safely transport your child to a Snow Route Location or to school, you have the option of calling in and receiving an excused absence for your child for the day in question.

The intent of implementing this plan is to provide you with a safe way of getting your child to school on days when back roads are impassable but our main roads are accessible. Hopefully, the SNOW ROUTE PLAN will get very limited use, but just in the case the weather is uncooperative, we want you to be aware of this back up plan to get kids to school.

Once again, thank you for your help and your support in making District #100 “a place where everybody is somebody”.

Jerry Klooster, Supt.

If you do have any questions, please do not hesitate to call. Remember, we all want our students to have a safe and rewarding school experience throughout the year.