SALISBURY, Md.- As snow reached Delmarva, school districts decided whether or not to cancel school for Friday. WBOC spoke with Wicomico and Dorchester County Public Schools who say the decision can be a tough one. Dave Bromwell, superintendent of Dorchester County says there are a lot of factors to consider.
“Delays early dismissal, or school cancellation it’s a very detailed and intricate process that sometimes starts over a week ahead of the suspected weather event,” said Bromwell.
Bromwell says that weather is very unpredictable, especially on the Eastern Shore.
“The weather really doesn’t care about all of your social media pieces. It acts the way it wants to, and the Eastern shore of Maryland is somewhat finicky and difficult because of the bay because of the ocean and how the weather reacts and then it can come down to just a couple degrees on whether it’s freezing or not freezing, and what kind of weather that creates,” said Bromwell.
Director of Transportation for Wicomico County Public Schools Desmond Hughes says different weather patterns means considering different factors.
“It depends on the weather type. For fall, we look at visibility and for snow and ice, we look at how slick the roads are,” said Hughes.
Both Hughes and Bromwell say the size of their counties make the job difficult.
“With the size of Dorchester county it’s really difficult to because we could be having snow in one part of the county in the northern part of the county and another part of the county could have rain so it’s a lot of at times misconception by our community as to why I wonder why they’re dismissing early,” said Bromwell. “It’s not an easy process ultimately, the final decision comes to me, but I take as much information as I can get from my transportation department, my operations director, local law-enforcement up and down the shore and communicate with them.”
Bromwell says over the years with social media, communicating with the public has gotten easier and more effective.
