Evanston/Skokie School District 65 schools will be open today. School officials say buses will run but may be slightly delayed due to the weather.
Communications Director Pat Markham said shortly before 6 a.m. that while considerable snow is expected in much of the Chicago area, the local forecast for Evanston anticipates only 2 inches of snow over the next several hours.
Safety in this weather
Given that the Illinois Department of Transportation is urging people to stay home, and most of the streets around my children’s schools were unplowed and slippery (busses could not even get down our home street and so parents had to drive their kids to school) it seems folly to keep the schools open. Skokie cancelled its classes on this last day before winter break.
The rain will make getting home this afternoon even more treacherous than getting to school. And given the conditions on sidewalks, children are making the highly unsafe choice of walking in the streets putting them at risk of being hit by cars slipping down the streets. It seems overall to be a less safe choice to open schools on the regular schedule than to have people just stay put AS ADVISED BY STATE AUTHORITIES.