For any school superintendent in Western New York winter weather is always a challenge. They have to make the decision of closing schools when bad weather arrives. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley says the Frontier Central School District superintendent starts his decision making in the middle of the night.
“There's definitely a lot of moving parts -- generally we start at about three o'clock. The director of transportation -- he comes in and he's on the roads and he's talking to the Town of Hamburg,” said Bret Apthorpe, Frontier Schools Superintendent.
Apthorpe stood in his office looking out the window across from wind-whipped Lake Erie off Route 5 in Hamburg. He's up as early as 2:30 in the morning tracking the winter weather forecasts.
"The snow squalls, I and the director of facilities will get out on the road as well because you know in Western New York you’ve got one end of your district being blue skies and the other rend being a white out,” Apthorpe explained. “We then, at the same time, all the superintendents in the area, we are all on the same text list, so we’re texting one another, sharing what we are hearing about the roads and the wind. We look at the National Weather Service for Buffalo. We look at the wind chill.”
Apthorpe tells WBFO News in the Frontier District he normally makes a decision to stay open or close by 5 a.m. Apthorpe is social media savvy. He uses both Twitter and Facebook.
“And I actually use Twitter to Tweet out that we are open because I know we’ve got parents and kids watching T.V. to see if we are closed and so I help to help with any of that anticipation by letting them know via Twitter,” explained Apthorpe.
Apthorpe realizes there will always be some of parents who are not pleased with his decision and they might decide to keep their child home.
“Because what I do is I use Facebook to articulate why the reasons went into the closing,” said Apthorpe.
But Apthorpe, who grew up in Chautauqua County, has a very hearty view about snowy weather.
“I grew up in Mayville, New York and in Mayville, New York – if they closed school every time there was a foot of snow – we would never have school,” declared Apthorpe.