This time it worked out positive.

http://fox4kc.com/2017/01/13/lees-summit...-st-louis-area/

Lee’s Summit students, parents relieved to be reunited following school bus accident in St. Louis area
POSTED 11:16 PM, JANUARY 13, 2017, BY MOLLY BALKENBUSH
LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. -- Two-dozen high school students are safe after they were involved in a school bus accident on Friday morning. The group from Lee's Summit High School was on their way back from a theatre conference in St. Louis. The school district said the students were not supposed to return until Saturday, but district staff decided it would be best if they returned a day early to avoid bad weather in Kansas City.
“It was pretty slick and we were all looking around making sure everybody was okay and everyone was,” said Elizabeth Bennett, a senior at the high school. “Glass was everywhere but it’s okay.”
The bus accident happened just outside of St. Louis. Students said they saw a semi-truck swerving off the road and when their bus slowed down to avoid it a truck slammed into the back of them.
“All those crazy things start going through your mind and you start assessing the situation immediately when they call,” said parent Matthew Bennett. “She was very upset and I could hear a lot the kids on the bus upset.”
Students said they were checked out by paramedics after the accident but thankfully nobody was seriously injured.
“I think I’ve never been more excited to see my school,” said Bennett, after she arrived back to the Lee’s Summit High School Parking lot.
Locally, the school district released students two-and-a-half hours early in case the roads got icy.

How about leaving the kids there until the ice was gone?? Common sense is not very common these days. I am appalled at the bullying job coming out of the palace in Stillwell, KS. Blue Valley canceled, so Olathe canceled, so DeSoto Canceled, so Shawnee canceled, so Basehore canceled, so the private schools canceled...the proverbial "domino effect." The BV Superintendent is basically a CEO reigning over more than a half billion in capital assets with thousands of employees and nearly 40,000 daily customers. He shut down school yesterday based on a 20% chance of precipitation forecast. If a CEO idled a publicly traded company with these kinds of numbers he would be fired in a heart beat. Who are these idiot administrators that shut down school and activities over a 20% chance of bad weather. The same ones who left school open last Friday when it actually snowed and was 10 to 15 degrees colder!? What the heck??? Maybe, just maybe, all of these overpaid morons who call themselves the leaders of public education are smarter than we thought. After all it is MLK day on Monday so shutting down school on Friday would sure make a nice four day weekend.

Meanwhile in Newton, KS where the forecast was 1.5 times worse from a predictive perspective they didn't cancel a darn thing. Yet Olathe called their team back?? S T U P I D!

Ok, let it fly...

Do you have a point? Maybe change your moniker to the great link cut and paster.

To further belabor Coakley's point..there was like 3-5 feet of snow in parts of the pacific northwest/sierra mtns....so far, with the exception of the Wichita area in the last hour, we got nothin'....:|

I would say move to another state or start your own state, start a HS state sports organization or affiliate, make your own school district, get your meterology degree,
write your own rules on travel, funding, practice dates and locations, you can promote programs in other states, hire who ever you want without any conflicts of interest and quit ruining the good work of others with your sarcastic BS and politics.

We could look at it another way - the last few weekends were just one less chance to get kicked out of a tournament representing your school, state organization, embarrassing the league and many of those associated with a person who goes on and on and on like a teenager who doesn't get his way. Frankly, it is sickening.

I am with Will. Some of the schools even cut school short.Did not have practice.This was all befor ANY thing even hit the ground.It is nuts.Most Schools are run by NUTS. From what I have seen in my few years on the earth. Most people working at schools have to be Politicians.They can not state the facts due to cry baby's.They want every one to walk across the finish line holding hands and handed a trophy.




Charles Bradford

What if?

A school named XXXX had a bus of kids going to a boys basketball tournament in Oklahoma,
A bus of kids going to Saint Louis for girls basketball, and wrestlers staying in the metro area - bad weather is suppose hit all area about the same with "crippling ice" in order to avoid having these kids potentially sleep, eat and stay at the host high school (stay in place) They have a policy in place that says make a decision on the available resources - I would want them to error on the side of caution with the students safety for a game or sporting event. The first round of weather expected weather only went about 2 hours south and east of KC.

Is is the wrong time to bring up the KSHSAA "multiplier factor"? If so, I'll start a new thread.

I commute from Olathe to Warrensburg and back 5 days a week, yesterday round trip and today's drive in were little different than every other days. I would have been ok with any one or all of my 4 kids getting on a bus and going anywhere within the state this weekend to compete/perform. As it was 3 of them were denied that opportunity. The forecast and it's forecasted impact were wildly wrong because specifically in the case of freezing rain the variables,if off by 1-2 degrees, change the whole prediction. Group think is never good. This was group think at its worst. The way DOTs prepare for weather events such as this has come a long way since we were kids and there needs to be more faith in their ability to keep the roads clear and passable. It is a shame. If we always erred on the side of caution we wouldn't let our kids play sports! Quit making excuses for stupidity.

Go to weather.com and look at the initial predictions that were thrown out there before they take them down out of embarrassment and compare to what actually happened. It is truly laughable. ICEPOCALYPSE! CRIPPLING ICE! c'mon we need to be smart enough to realize that EVERY DAY people tell us they know what they are talking about and they DO NOT. EVERY DAY.

and just to be clear despite some of the timing I dont think anybody has an issue with the Sunday cancellations that have occurred--ie Burlington, SMNW, etc BUT the Friday and Saturday cancellations of school and events are another story for KANSAS in state participants.

Hindsight is always 20/20

I was lamenting the possible closures and cancellations starting Wednesday BECAUSE freezing rain/ice storms can not be predicted with a reliable degree of accuracy. some perspective: how often does the weather man hit the predicted high and low temperature forecast right on the nose? not very often. for freezing rain/an ice storm prediction to be accurate that's what has to happen for multiple layers of atmosphere. to do that with accuracy over a wide geographic area is impossible, yet the information is presented as scientific certainty and people take it and run with it. Thank goodness there are districts in the state that aren't beholden to anyone but themselves and dont fall prey to herd mentality. Be more like Newton.

Host schools and their administration and tournament directors cancel events at their facility. Attending visiting school make decisions whether or not to send their teams. We host a tournament at an Olathe School Facility - If we had bad weather and the school district said we could not host a tournament guess what - we could not host it. All the yelling and screaming by PARENTS most likely would not help. Parents tend to be involved in youth and HS activities only while their kids are involved - after their kids are to old most those parents are gone and no longer help and get off boards and committees. Making some changes are good and need to be reviewed and voted on through a process which normally has some guidelines.


Current -
Interim Superintendent Dr. Patricia All — pall@olatheschools.org
Education Center — (913) 780-80



John Allison Named the Next Superintendent
Dec. 19, 2016 ~ In a special meeting on Monday, Dec. 19, the Olathe Board of Education named John Allison the next Superintendent of the Olathe Public Schools. Allison, currently the Superintendent of the Wichita Public Schools, will officially begin his duties in Olathe on July 1.
"It is my honor and privilege to be appointed Superintendent of the Olathe Public Schools," Allison said. "Olathe is a community that takes great pride in their schools and strives to offer a world-class education for each student. I look forward to working with the Board of Education, staff, students, parents and community to make sure our students are prepared for their future."
Allison has worked in public education for the past 29 years and has served as Superintendent in the Wichita Public Schools since 2009. Prior to becoming superintendent for the Wichita Public Schools, Allison served for two years as superintendent of the Mt. Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania. His educational career also includes service as deputy superintendent of the Grapevine-Colleyville School District in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, associate superintendent for education services for the Shawnee Mission School District, and as a middle school and high school building administrator. He began his teaching career in Spring Hill as a high school social studies teacher and coach. His experience includes service in rural, urban, and suburban school districts.
"We, as a Board of Education, are thrilled to have John Allison as our next superintendent," Board President Rick Schier said. "In our search for the next leader of the Olathe Public Schools, we were looking for an individual who has a student-first philosophy, has the strong leadership skills to work in a large school district, has excellent people skills, is a strong communicator and has an ability to work well with elected officials. We feel John Allison possesses every one of the qualities and skills we were looking for. He brings great experience, and a strong educational background. We are confident he will be an outstanding leader for our students, staff, parents and community."
Allison obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Kansas, and his Masters of Science from Emporia State University. He has completed doctoral course work in Education Leadership at St. Louis University and Southwestern College.
Active in civic and community leadership during his career, Allison is a member of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. He helped develop the Business Education Innovation Partnership between the district and the chamber, allowing partners in the business community to evaluate different business areas of the district to find efficiencies and to share ideas about best practices. This initiative led to the formation of the chamber's Business and Education Alliance, a critical effort to advance business and workforce issues in the region. He is also on the United Way of the Plains Board of Directors and is a board member of the Kansas/Missouri Superintendents Forum.
John and his wife Ramie, who began her teaching career at Olathe's Countryside Elementary, have two children. Their son, Cade, attended Pleasant Ridge Elementary, is a University of Kansas graduate and resides in Dallas. Their daughter, Cooper, is currently attending Kansas State University. The family is excited about the opportunity to return to the Olathe community.



David Howard
dhoward@usd458.org

Basehor-Linwood USD #458
2008 N. 155th Street
P.O. Box 282
Basehor, Kansas 66007
(913) 724-1396

https://weather.com/news/weather/news/winter-storm-jupiter-ice-storm-plains-midwest-latest-news

so far 6 fatalities

I would dare say it is one of the main purposes of a FORUM, such as this, to air frustrations with policies/circumstances/decisions/rules we can do nothing about as they are beyond are control; to raise our group voice of frustration in the hope that our cries are heard by the ear of justice/common sense/an administrator who starts his tenure July 1st. It is another thing altogether to come on here and be an apologist for bad decision making. It was a BAD DECISION to cancel Friday and Saturday activities based on low percentage information 36-48 hours in advance, it is even worse to lock step fall in line with another organization and say "well District X cancelled so we have to also" Be more like Newton!!!!!!

How many fatalities in the same time frame typically on those same highways?? Correlation isnt causation. your point is moot

Naming winter storms is something FOR PROFIT COMPANIES like weather.com and TWC do to make you click on over to their site. Unfortunately school administrators often use this kind of sensationalized information to make decisions. Here is a wall of text that is pertinent to the discussion:

Weather Channel Decision to Name Winter Storms Will Increase Confusion in Delivering Critical Safety Information to Public
October 03, 2012; 3:48 PM

Unilateral Initiative Not Supported by Science
STATE COLLEGE, PA - October 3, 2012 - A unilateral decision by The Weather Channel to name winter storms will create confusion, rather than delivering critical and important safety and planning information to the public, said AccuWeather, Inc. AccuWeather's own examination of the issue over many years has found no benefit to users of weather forecasts by the initiative recently announced by The Weather Channel.
"In unilaterally deciding to name winter storms, The Weather Channel has confused media spin with science and public safety and is doing a disservice to the field of meteorology and public service," said Dr. Joel N. Myers, AccuWeather Founder and President. He pointed to a reported statement by The Weather Channel's spokesman that storms affecting many people would get names and that those affecting few people would not be named, highlighting the arbitrary nature of the unpublished criteria.
"We have explored this issue for 20 years," continued Dr. Myers, "and have found that this is not good science and importantly will actually mislead the public. Winter storms are very different from hurricanes."
Naming of hurricanes makes sense because they are well-defined storms following a path that can be tracked and predicted. Hurricanes have a life of many days and often weeks, move deliberately, and primarily affect a well-defined area of impact in all four quadrants, centered around the Eye-Path™.
By contrast, winter storms are often erratic, affecting different areas unevenly. Winter storms often develop, dissipate, and reform with two to three centers, often delivering snow in only one quadrant, while places not too far away from a blizzard may experience rain or fog, or nothing at all. As a result, the public will not know what action to take when there is a "named" storm, or may take the wrong action.
By contrast, some of the most severe winter events affect only limited areas, such as lake effect snow or freezing rain, which are not even associated with a predicted storm center. Under the Weather Channel system, these might not even be named, yet they can cause death and destruction.
As a result, AccuWeather believes that naming winter storms by The Weather Channel will increase confusion in the public and the emergency management community

Not sure on dry roads. These specific incidents were a result of icy conditions during a 24-48 period.
It could possibly been higher or lower if people did not listen to warnings and stay off roads.