{"id":15050,"date":"2013-07-11T06:32:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T11:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=15050"},"modified":"2013-07-12T10:33:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T15:33:55","slug":"some-shelterless-oklahoma-schools-to-cancel-class-when-tornados-threaten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/07\/11\/some-shelterless-oklahoma-schools-to-cancel-class-when-tornados-threaten\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Shelterless Oklahoma Schools to Cancel Class When Tornados Threaten"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Father<\/p>\n

Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Mara Crew's father, Jesse, says he'd prefer Tulsa-area schools install storm shelters instead of closing doors for "tornado days" during severe weather.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Of the many ideas for changes to state policy following May\u2019s deadly tornado outbreak \u2014 changing building codes<\/a> to make public structures safer, requiring shelters<\/a> in new school buildings, providing money to upgrade schools without shelters \u2014 the one that has the best chance of actually happening is ‘tornado days.’<\/p>

Local superintendents don’t need any approval to cancel school in the winter\u2014 or spring, when sunny weather can quickly turn violent.<\/p>

Tulsa has just one FEMA-approved storm shelter in its entire school system. Still, Bob Roberts, the district\u2019s emergency management coordinator, says Tulsa likely won\u2019t be canceling classes when possibly tornadic weather threatens.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

The risk of tornadoes grows after the public school day ends, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Information show.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\u201cTornados tend to hit the eastern part of the state in early evening. They don\u2019t issue tornado watches until late morning to early afternoon,” Roberts says. “So this isn\u2019t a question of cancelling school. This is a question of closing school while students are in it. And that becomes very problematic.\u201d<\/p>

Districts could end up cancelling full days of class that end up being storm-free. Letting class out early as severe weather approaches could lead to stranded students, and traffic congestion at the worst possible time.<\/p>

But the same problems don\u2019t really apply to small, rural districts, like Alex, in southwestern Oklahoma. Last month, Superintendent James Washburn told StateImpact<\/a> he\u2019ll cancel class ahead of severe weather until his school gets a shelter, and thinks other small-town superintendents will, too.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s just too much of a danger to have that many people concentrated in one area. When you lose lives, it\u2019s just not acceptable,\u201d Washburn says.<\/p>

The state Department of Education says as long as schools provide 175 days of instruction each year, districts can cancel school for any weather, anytime of the year.<\/p>

The question is whether cancelling school for severe storms is the right thing to do — whether it saves lives.<\/p>

Oklahoma wouldn\u2019t be the first state to call school for possible tornados. An EF-4 severely damaged<\/a> the high school in Enterprise, Ala. in 2007, killing nine students. When another round of storms came through four years later, officials in Tuscaloosa cancelled school \u2014 and they’re glad they did.<\/p>

\u201cWhen the April 27, 2011 tornado happened, we had been receiving weather reports about it, and our acting superintendent at the time decided to call school off on that day,\u201d Lesley Bruinton, public relations coordinator for Tuscaloosa City Schools, says.\u00a0\u201cAs we found out later, by the time the sun had set, two of our buildings had been hit by that EF-4 tornado. You hate to speculate about what would have happened if we\u2019d been in school.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the many ideas for changes to state policy following May\u2019s deadly tornado outbreak \u2014 changing building codes to make public structures safer, requiring shelters in new school buildings, providing money to upgrade schools without shelters \u2014 the one that has the best chance of actually happening is ‘tornado days.’Local superintendents don’t need any approval […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":15051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492],"tags":[855,539,540],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15050"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15114,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050\/revisions\/15114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}