With the approach of the holiday season and the promise of time off from school, also comes the unknown of when a bad weather system might move through our area.
Because the Hillsboro School District encompasses such a broad area—more than 200 square miles to be exact!—we go on alert when the forecast calls for snow, ice, or freezing rain below 1,500 feet.
Most days, we can hold school on time, as scheduled, simply by having our school buses drive snow routes as needed in the higher elevations. Other times, we may need to delay the start of school by two hours to allow the weather situation to improve, or we may need to close school altogether because conditions are too unpredictable or unsafe to risk student travel. On still other occasions, the weather may be fine in the morning, but get progressively worse toward the afternoon, in which case we may need to send students home early and/or cancel afternoon and evening activities.
There are several ways parents can be prepared for and alerted to changes in the normal school routine.
Before bad weather hits:
- Familiarize yourself with your Snow Zone and the snow route stops for your busing area. If your student rides the bus to and/or from school, visit our website at www.hsd.k12.or.us and click the Inclement Weather button on the homepage. From there, you can click on your school’s name and be taken to a page that lists your area’s Snow Zone number, as well as the AM and PM snow route stops in your zone. If your school is not listed, the buses in your area do not have snow route stops that are different from normal stops. Walk or drive to the snow route stop with your child to familiarize them with the stop, but make sure they know to only go there if they are told their bus will run on a snow route on a particular day.
- Sign up for alerts through FlashAlert or Twitter. FlashAlert is the system most local school districts use to inform the media about buses being on snow routes, school delays, and school closures. You can subscribe up to three e-mail and/or cell text message addresses to receive these alerts by visiting www.flashalert.net. You can also follow the Hillsboro School District on Twitter by clicking the link from FlashAlert, or by clicking the Twitter icon on our website. Note that cell text messages generated by the FlashAlert system may be delayed on days with extreme weather conditions as multiple schools and other public agencies are sending messages through the system at the same time and the volume can overwhelm cell phone providers.
When bad weather hits:
- Visit our website. Barring catastrophic Internet failure, information will always be posted at the top of our website by 5:45 a.m. on inclement weather days.
- Check your e-mail. Information will also be sent out to our Hot News e-mail distribution lists on inclement weather days (closures and delays only - not snow route days). If you are not currently signed up for our weekly Hot News e-newsletter and would like to be, please e-mail Beth Graser at graserbe@hsd.k12.or.us.
- Watch or listen to the news. TV news stations set up a “crawl” at the bottom of their broadcast to list information and local radio stations will read announcements on inclement weather days.
Please note that the Hillsboro School District has made a change to past practice as it relates to Academic Seminar days (Wednesdays). Previously, there has been no option of a 2-hour delay on Wednesdays, as these days were already 30 minutes short for the Academic Seminar. Now, if the District determines that a 2-hour delay would suffice for making travel to school a reasonably safe option on a Wednesday, the day will revert to a regular schedule and be altered accordingly. This means all schools would start two hours later than their normal start time, and all schools would end at their normal end time. Morning kindergarten would be canceled, and afternoon kindergarten would be on its normal schedule. To see these exact times, please visit the school pages on our website and review the School Schedule information.