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Vol. 15, No. 8, Wednesday, January 22, 2020 www.LamontLeader.com
Deep Freeze ends
Dense fog hangs in the air near Fort Saskatchewan on Jan. 15 which saw temperatures below -40 with the windchill.
Cold snap stalls bus delivery of students to EIPS Schools BY JANA SEMENIUK AND JOHN MATHER Extreme cold warnings dominated much of the weather forecast this past week. Temperatures plummeted to -40C forcing the cancellation of bus service for Elk Island Public Schools. Partial school bus service was cancelled Jan. 13 and all school bus service was cancelled the rest of the week Jan. 14 – Jan. 17. Laura McNabb, director of communication services for EIPS, stated by email that the decision to cancel school buses is never taken lightly, and done only when the safety of students is at risk. “Our guidelines state that once the temperature drops below -40C with windchill, we won’t run buses. Sometimes, this occurs only in our rural areas; for instance, on Monday, we cancelled buses just for Andrew, Mundare and Vegreville,” she said. “When the province-wide extreme cold
warning was announced, however, and temperatures plummeted throughout the division, all 157 buses providing service were suspended.” McNabb added that the safety of students is twofold. “First and foremost, students can’t be waiting outside for the bus in temperatures that can see exposed skin freeze in three minutes. This is especially dangerous as many kids don’t know enough to dress properly for conditions, and are at risk for severe frost bite and hypothermia. Secondly, we can’t rely on buses to function properly in such low temperatures—even if the buses start, they might not continue to run and if they break down, there’s no heat and students could be stranded in the cold for an extended period of time. That’s simply not a chance we’re willing to take,” she said. Suspending bus service can mean large gaps in attendance at schools which see a good percentage of stu-
dents living in rural areas. Bruderheim school principal Cheryl Semeniuk notes that Bruderheim school was definitely smaller in numbers this past week. “We had 50 to 75 per cent of students in attendance this past week,” said Semeniuk by email. “Teachers continue with instruction and communicate with students and families that are not able to come to school due to weather.” Semeniuk added that staff have been creative in helping students stay active while utilizing indoor recesses. “Each recess, various activities are planned which keep students engaged, active and ready to learn throughout the day. The gym, hallways, and open spaces are used during recess for active sports and exercise. Our students have particularly enjoyed the supervised hallway jogging circuit, the laser beam yarn course on the stage, mini-stick hockey as well as classroom board games,” she said.
At Lamont High School cold weather led to the cancellation of the annual basketball tournament. There is no word on when it will be rescheduled. “I can’t tell you how many kids were here,” said a school spokesman. “The buses were cancelled but we had a couple of diploma exams so I know some students, who have their licences, would have driven themselves to school.” The spokesman said it was hard to say how many kids may have been missing. “At the elementary school when the buses don’t run, they know how many kids they are down, but not here,” she said. “I would say we averaged maybe 60 to 70 kids a day last week but we have an enrolment of 300.” She added there were no changes in the curriculum during the cold snap. Temperatures are expected to warm up as we move to the end of January.