MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — High temperatures, heavy traffic, and an opportunity to gain instructional time are factors in the decision to cancel classes for Monongalia County Schools students.
On WAJR’s “Talk of the Town,” Superintendent Eddie Campbell said the uncertainty of how heavy the traffic will be combined with very high temperatures created a potentially dangerous situation.
“The last thing we want to have happen is to have nearly 100-degree temperatures and the students caught in traffic on an unairconditioned bus,” Campbell said.
When MECCA 911 officials reached out to Campbell with some estimates of crowd size, alternate routes were reviewed, but the risks were too great to put buses on the roads filled with kids. Plus, Morgantown High School is within a mile of the show site, and they plan to dismiss at 12:20 p.m.
“The Pat McAfee Show is scheduled to start at noon, but the gates will open at 9 a.m., and MECCA 911 told us they’re expecting somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people to be physically present at the show,” Campbell said.
Campbell, they’ll make the day by canceling a scheduled professional development day this winter, and the effect will be a gain of two hours of instructional time.
“We can trade that day off so we can cancel classes for tomorrow and reschedule those for a professional development day in February,” Campbell said. “And by doing so, we actually gain two hours of instructional time.”
Campbell said with the opportunity to make up the time and make a slight gain, it just makes good sense to avoid an unnecessary risk.
“I just made a lot of sense for us to not get involved with all of the to-do downtown and just give the kids the day off,” Campbell said.