HOUSTON — As thunderstorms and tornadoes swept through southeast Texas, students and parents kept their eyes on any updates regarding school closures.
While only one school closed completely on Tuesday, many school districts decided to delay their start time for a couple of hours. But multiple major districts like Houston, Fort Bend and Katy ISD decided to open their campuses on their normal schedules.
HISD Superintendent Millard House II shared with KHOU 11 the process behind the district's decision. Instead of delaying classes, he said the district excused tardies for the day.
"We actually saw during that time period between about 6 and 7:30 that the weather band would for the most part be towards the east side of Houston heading out of Houston, by the time the majority of our buses would be getting kids to school," he said in a phone interview.
District officials said Tuesday they expected delays, and excused students who arrived late.
Here's the district's full statement:
“The safety of our students, staff, and families is paramount for our district – especially in weather events like the one that impacted our region this morning.
Leading up to any weather event, HISD leadership participates in various updates with emergency operations partners across the region. We began monitoring this event over the weekend and, as the system approached last night, the district sent crews out to ensure bus routes prone to flooding were passable and did not present danger to our students or staff. At that time, bus routes were not holding water that would make them impassable. The latest forecasts also made it clear that conditions would improve by the time most buses would need to transport students to school safely.
Due to the timing and rapidly changing nature of the weather system, arrival delays were expected. As such, the district excused all tardies for March 22nd for all students at all our campuses.”
HISD, FBISD and Katy ISD got a lot of grief on social media over their decisions because there was torrential rain and wind around the time students, parents and buses would be trying to get to school.
Katy ISD and Spring ISD also excused students who were tardy.