Many Louisiana Parents Fuming after Parish Doesn’t Cancel School
A severe band of thunderstorms that moved from Texas into Louisiana very early this morning led to multiple severe thunderstorm warnings along with tornado warnings.
Yesterday, school districts in Acadiana decided to ere on the side of caution and announced they would be closing schools due to inclement weather.
One school district clearly in the path of the severe weather threat decided not to cancel school only to do so at 8:30 Wednesday morning following electrical outages at multiple schools in the parish according to KPLC.
Some 1,300 comments have been left on the Facebook page for the Calcasieu Parish School Board. The responses vary, but many of the parents expressed anger and frustration as they felt their children were put in harm's way.
Dr. Shannon Lafargue released a statement today addressing the issue:
Weather-related decisions are some of the most difficult decisions we have to make as school district leaders. We understand the concerns from this morning's inclement weather. We will learn from today's events, as we do with all weather-related events. We will adjust existing policies and procedures and explore additional policies and procedures, including immediate development of delayed start protocols. We want to thank our school administrators, teachers, and bus drivers for their continued commitment to our students and their safety, which was certainly on full display during today's events.
As far as parents, this is just one statement from Casey Christ who shared her thoughts on how things happened:
The lack of communication from The Calcasieu Parish School System to the public was a repeated topic of the comments made on Facebook:
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