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Cancellation cuts Warren to just one calamity day
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Though most students in Trumbull and Mahoning counties had school Tuesday, the 5,400 students in Warren City Schools had a second consecutive day off, meaning the school district has just one of its three calamity days left.
Kathryn Hellweg, Warren superintendent, said the decision early Tuesday to cancel school was based on the condition of sidewalks and side streets.
“Our foremost concern is the safety of our students,” she said. “The city was not able to clear all of the roads and side streets. Definitely the sidewalks have not been shoveled.”
Half of the district’s 5,400 students walk to school, and when sidewalks are that snow-covered, many children walk on the edge of the street and become vulnerable to injury from motor vehicles.
Hellweg’s conversation with the police department Tuesday morning indicated that “It just wasn’t safe for our students to get to school.”
Hellweg said the district has an automated phone system that contacts each student’s home with notification of school cancellations. On that system, Hellweg told family members to “do all they can to clear the sidewalks for the walkers to use.”
Pat Calvey, Warren city operations superintendent, said the city had 16 plow trucks working overnight and has been working 24 hours to clear away the snow. The side streets were plowed overnight, but they were not “black and dry” because the snow continued to come down overnight and into the day.
“It’s unfortunate. They are not going to be black and dry right now. They’re not going to be black and dry until Monday from what I can tell,” he said.
As for sidewalks, those are the homeowners’ responsibility, and most of them hold 8 inches or more of snow.
“Her concerns are pretty well-founded,” Calvey said of the condition of the sidewalks.
“If they’re going to walk on the edge of the street, it’s not the safest place at 7 a.m. before the sun comes up — or even after the sun comes up.”
Like Hellweg, Calvey said he urges homeowners to clear their sidewalks for the safety of the children.
“If people get out and clear the walks, they [children] will have no trouble getting to school,” Calvey said, adding: “I wouldn’t put my two daughters out there to walk on the edge of the road to get to school.”
The school district, anticipating that the state was going to reduce the number of calamity days, changed its calendar starting last year to move two days-off to May that had been scheduled earlier in the year.
The two days-off are now on Fridays in May. If the school district runs out of calamity days, it can have classes on either or both of those days to make them up, Hellweg said.
The two days are required under union contracts to compensate staff for the evening parent-teacher conferences they work, Hellweg said.