How Tulsa Public Schools Decide To Cancel Classes Or Not

All that ice and no sun had Tulsa Public Schools again canceling classes for Thursday. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Ashli Sims explains how the district makes the call whether to have school or not.

Wednesday, January 17th 2007, 12:52 pm

By: News On 6

All that ice and no sun had Tulsa Public Schools again canceling classes for Thursday.

News on 6 reporter Ashli Sims explains how the district makes the call whether to have school or not.

The vacation for area students continues through Thursday. School transportation officials say neighborhood roads are simply too dangerous.

A photojournalist and I put the roads to the test; we actually drove one of the routes near Mitchell Elementary School. And it was a slippery mess; just stopping at a stop sign was treacherous.

Every morning, Tulsa Public Schools has transportation supervisors who get out and do exactly what we did. And they're report for Wednesday was not good. TPS transportation director Ottway Burkhalter: "the streets were just as bad as they were yesterday or worse. And with the temperatures not dropping below freezing we donâ€™t have any reason to believe its gonna get any better."

Burkhalter also says special education students play a big factor in determining whether buses can run, because those buses have to go into neighborhoods to pick those students up. In fact, they not only have to navigate the road, but also get to a student's front door to help wheelchair bound students to the bus.

Burkhalter says 66 routes that go into neighborhoods were impassable, that's one-third of all bus routes. They're taking it day by day at Tulsa Public Schools, but they're now out of snow days and that now means school into the month of June.