Inside MCCSC’s weather-related school closure decisions

At Tuesday night’s MCCSC (Monroe County Community School Corporation) board meeting (Dec. 16), superintendent Markay Winston took the chance to walk board members through the considerations for weather-related school closures, which include weather forecasts, actual road conditions, legal requirements, and communication with families.

Winston’s explanation was prompted by recurring questions she has received about the recent closures. “There’s been a lot of frustration, quite frankly, in our community,” she said.

This month, due to snow and severe cold, schools have had one self-paced e-learning day (Dec. 2), two real-time e-learning days (Dec. 12, 15), and one two-hour delay (Dec. 16). The Bloomington area saw lows of –4°F and up to five inches of accumulated snow, according to the National Weather Service.

How a decision is made: forecasts and road conditions

“We don’t take these decisions lightly.” Winston said factors that go into the decision include both forecasted conditions and actual observations of the roads. She also said MCCSC communicates with a contracted meteorologist and local law enforcement to help inform decisions.

“We’re not just looking at temperature,” she continued. She said the wind chill was below –9°F one of the days. “I will not have children standing and waiting for a bus in that kind of temperature. And if it means that I get 100 more frustrated and angry emails, then I would say, ‘bring those on.’ That would be irresponsible.”

Actual road conditions on the day of a potential closing are an important consideration as well. Winston said, “I get lots of inquiries and questions about: ‘I look out my window, and I can see the streets. Why are we closed? Why are we having e-learning?’” Winston added, “And I can look out my window, too, and if I use that as the only metric for determining whether or not we have in-person school, we would have in-person school every day of the week because I happen to live within the city limits.”

She continued, “Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the fact that we have hundreds and thousands of children who don’t live within the city limits. And we have country roads that are not paved, and that are full of snow and full of ice.” MCCSC has 23 schools with about 10,000 total students and around 2,000 employees.

The final decision for a school closure or delay rests with the superintendent. Winston told The B Square she sets her alarm for about 2:55 a.m. when anticipating inclement weather based on forecasts. MCCSC facilities, custodial, and transportation staff recommend a course of action early in the morning.

Staff drive around Monroe County to assess road conditions. Winston said that last week staff had sent her video footage with comments like, “Dr. Winston, look at these country roads. There’s no way our buses can turn around.”

MCCSC’s legal responsibilities

Indiana state law requires school corporations to conduct at least 180 student instructional days. The state law also allows “virtual student instructional days” to count towards that 180-day requirement—as long as learning is real-time (synchronous).

Schools are allowed three days each school year of virtual days that are self-paced (asynchronous), of which MCCSC has used one. Winston said, “We much prefer our children in classrooms ... they’re going to get the highest quality of instruction with in-person learning—everybody knows that. And yet we also know that our teachers are so talented they can, in fact, provide high quality instruction virtually, but it is not our preference.”

Snow days without any instruction have to be made up. While there have not been any snow days with no instruction, MCCSC’s 2025-2026 calendar has two built-in snow days, which are days off that can be used to make up for a snow day without e-learning.

Communicating a decision with staff, students and families

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Winston said, “Usually, our goal is to have a firm recommendation between 3:30 and 4:00, because then I want to start announcing, by 4:30, to our employees, and by 5:00 to our families.”

Families are notified of closures or delays on ParentSquare, the district’s primary communication platform. More information about how the district deals with inclement weather is available on MCCSC’s website.