Cold doesn’t freeze school bells

Elizabeth Thielen took note of the temperature in her family’s pickup before scrambling out into the sharp air.

“I think it’s negative 4,” said the 8-year-old, while waiting at her Greenacres Elementary bus stop with her sister, Ashlynn, on the coldest morning so far this year – if today’s temperature doesn’t beat it.

Temperatures in Spokane on Friday morning dropped a few clicks below zero and weren’t expected to get above 16 during the day.

The most important thing to bring when waiting for the bus on a subzero morning?

“Patience,” said Brenton Theilen, Elizabeth and Ashlynn’s father, while he waited with the girls. “It seems like it takes forever for that bus.”

It arrived, right on time.

At schools across the region, recess seemed to be the only casualty to the weather Friday.

“We stay inside and play some games until the recess bell rings,” said Ashlynn, 6.

Depending on other weather factors, principals usually start keeping students inside when the temperature drops below 20, said Central Valley School District spokeswoman Melanie Rose.

But don’t count on a snow day when the mercury drops.

“The last time we closed schools (for weather) was Ice Storm” a decade ago, Rose said.

Many students who usually walk caught a ride to school with their parents Friday.

“Even my close ones get driven,” Adams Elementary School crossing guard Lori Deckard said Friday. Business at her intersection in front of the Spokane Valley school thins out when it gets below 20, she said.

Friday’s temperatures were well below the average low of 21.

The coldest temperature on record for Friday’s date, set in 1949, is minus 7, according to the National Weather Service.

The brisk weather isn’t expected to change much today. Mostly sunny skies and light wind will accompany an expected low of 6 and a 30 percent chance of snow.

Temperatures should be slightly higher in Coeur d’Alene. The expected high is 12, and the expected low tonight is 5.

At Bryan Elementary School in Coeur d’Alene, early recesses were canceled Friday, but students were able to get outside in the afternoon after school officials closely watched the temperature climb into the 20s.

As for the trek to class, “it just depends on the school that you’re associated with,” said Principal Joel Palmer.

At Bryan, about 85 percent of students take the bus or get a ride, he said, but at other schools that many students may be walking or riding their bikes.

On days when the weather may turn sour in the Lake Pend Oreille School District, Superintendent Dick Cvitanich gets up at 3:30 or 4 a.m. to call the National Weather Service in Spokane for conditions, then confers with his transportation team before deciding whether to cancel school.

The district’s Hope Elementary School was without power and closed recently following high winds.

“The issue is sometimes not so much the cold but the trees blown down on the road,” Cvitanich said.

On especially cold days, some or all students will stay indoors for recess, but the schools try to let them play outdoors whenever possible.

“Our kids, they come to school prepared to go outside,” he said. “We really look at a combination of the temperature and the wind blowing.”