Student safety is always our top priority. Our buses travel more than 42,000 miles daily across the 650 square miles of Guilford County, and the safety of those bus routes is the primary driver for our weather decisions.

GCS works with the regional branch of the National Weather Service in Raleigh to track weather forecasts as well as working hand-in-hand with Guilford County Emergency Management and safety officials in the cities of Greensboro and High Point. A team of GCS staff comes together when a possible safety risk emerges to assess the impact on operations, sometimes many times as weather forecasts become more certain closer to the event.

We do our very best to give families ample time to prepare for a delay or closure, but sometimes weather predictions, especially when temperatures hover close to freezing, are uncertain. When necessary, our transportation teams drive roads across the county starting at 3am, paying particular attention to areas where they know hazards are most likely. The GCS emergency team convenes at 4am to review their findings and to make a recommendation in order to get information to families and staff members as early as possible once it is confirmed that a delay or closure is necessary.

Unfortunately, the nature of predicting the exact impact of the weather in advance is uncertain. There is no perfect call, and we are always learning to make the very best decisions to protect student safety as well as maximizing instructional time when it is safe to proceed with school.

Our weather forecasts come through regular updates from the National Weather Service office in Raleigh. A team of GCS staff members representing different departments convenes to consider road and safety conditions, often including real-time information from essential staff members who drive targeted bus routes where road hazards are more common since we know that often weather impacts can be different across the 650 square miles of Guilford County. We also consult with our local and state government public safety partners and our neighboring school districts as we assess whether it is safe for buses to run on-time.

North Carolina state law allows districts to transition to remote learning for five (5) days each school year. In addition to limitations on the amount of remote instruction time that may be scheduled, our teams carefully assess weather forecasts to determine if remote learning is feasible. In cases where widespread power outages are predicted, remote learning may not be a feasible option.