Coming of off last year’s legendary extended Winter Break, the yearning for a snow day seems even sharper than usual. Unfortunately, despite the fact that winter began nearly four weeks ago, we’ve had no evidence that it remembers its true job: getting us off school.

Ed Shouse, science teacher, said this winter has so far matched National Weather Service predictions, with the exception of less than average snow-fall. He said he predicts one or two more snow days before the end of the year.

“I don’t see any way it will even be close to like last winter, so if you like snow days that’s kind of unfortunate,” Shouse said.

To predict weather and the likelihood of a snow day, Shouse looks at all different kinds of maps, studying factors like moisture in the air and the positioning of the jet stream. In the short term, he said warm weather will stay for most of this week before temperatures cool back down.

Despite the current lack of frigid or snowy weather, however, Shouse said “we really have a lot of winter to go,” with the possibility of snow-day-inducing weather through February and even March.

When that inclement weather hits, it falls to Superintendent Dr. Eric Knost to decide whether to call off school. He said this year’s decision making is not at all affected by lasts year’s large amount of snow days.

Dr. Knost said he works with a team of Rockwood employees to assess each weather situation and consider factors such as current and future weather conditions, local road conditions, the status of school sidewalks and parking lots and other school district’s decisions.

“When we have bad weather in the forecast for the following day we arrange timing for road assessments by our team and for conferencing to discuss road conditions,” Dr. Knost said. “I monitor the weather consistently as any storm approaches. I pay attention to the National Weather Service, local meteorologists, and I monitor the MODoT road conditions website.”

In addition, Dr. Knost said he confers with Superintendents of nearby districts either the night before a possible snow day or between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. on the day of. There is no set policy on snow day conditions, and Dr. Knost said the decision is left to the Superintendent based on these considerations.

“I try very hard to make a decision about school on any potential weather day between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.,” Dr. Knost said.