The temperature is 5 degrees. The ground is white, covered in snow. The roads become icy and slick, making them impossible to drive on. To almost everyone in Missouri this sounds familiar, because frequently it happens. With all of these bad weather changes, most teenagers are all thinking one thing: SNOW DAY. For most students who are looking out the window at the white earth, the decision to cancel school is pretty easy. But for Dr. Aaron Zalis, it’s another story.

“We have six people, including myself that are involved in the process. The night before I check the forecasts, I contact them as to whether we should drive or not in the morning. About 3:30-3:45 AM I personally leave the house, so do the other folks, and start heading around eh various parts of the district. Each of the six people, myself included have different sectors of the school district since there’s about 200 square miles of road in our school district. We have both in the city and county roads that we’re checking. We meet at transportation at 5 o’clock in the morning. We try to the make the determination if we are going to have school prior to six. Those guidelines are listed on our website. In the meantime, while we’re out and about, we’re in conversation with various superintendents from the surrounding areas. The difference between our immediate school districts such as St. James and Newburg is that they don’t have snow routes, their district is primarily rural roads,” Zalis said.

Having to decide if school is in session or not is definitely not an easy decision. It’s probably one of the hardest jobs of being a superintendent.

“For every person who agrees with the decision [to cancel school], there’s another person who disagrees. It’s a big decision to make. I personally think a lot of people wouldn’t be willing to make it,” Zalis said. “The parents who have to be at work and haven’t made arrangements for daycare want ust o be in session, they don’t understand why we’re not. And then there are those [parents] who have the opportunity to watch their kids and think it’s too cold. I never expect to please people.”