Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Calling a snow day can feel this way for school administrators, who know all too well that the decision (either way) is likely to draw ire.

Ultimately, local school leaders tell The Ticker that thousands of inconvenienced parents are better than a single dead student or staffer, almost always leading to a “better safe than sorry” approach.

“You’re always going to have people who have different feelings on whether you should have school or not, along with different motivations,” says Traverse City Area Public Schools Superintendent John VanWagoner. “You have to take all these things into consideration and make the very best decision you can, but the tipping point is always safety.”

More than half of TCAPS and Kingsley Area Schools students take the bus, and the ability to safely operate those fleets plays a major role in the decision to call a snow day. But school leaders are also thinking about student drivers, who are already at a higher risk of traffic crashes.

“What a lot of people don’t think about is the fact that we have a lot of young drivers,” Kingsley Superintendent Josh Rothwell says. “You have kids who are 16, 17, 18 years old that haven’t been driving very long, and now you’re going to put them out there on those icy and snowy roads. We have to be cognizant of that.”

The snow day decision is no easier for private school leaders, who like their public counterparts know how many parents dread that 5am text or email.

“You’re either popular with some of the staff and the students, or you’re popular with the parents,” says Michele Shane, head of school at The Children’s House, a private Montessori school across the street from Traverse City West High School. “(The decision is) tricky, and there’s no perfect science to it.”

With Monday’s cancellation, TCAPS has now had six snow days for the school year, the “baked-in” number granted to public schools under state regulations. Any more days must be made up at the end of the year unless the district applies to the state board of education for three additional days, a decision VanWagoner says won’t be made until spring. Hitting the six-day cap has no bearing on future snow day decisions, he says.

 “I've never in my career based any decision on a snow day off any of that stuff,” he says. "If we have one, five, nine or 22, every one of them is an individual decision.”

That said, district leaders would rather not have to make up the days for a variety of reasons.

“You get into June, and the quality of instruction is a challenge, with the kids paying less attention and the weather being 90 degrees outside,” Rothwell says. “Your typical school day is probably not going to be as effective.”

Rothwell says Kingsley’s district is relatively consistent weather-wise, but it’s a different story in the massive TCAPS footprint, where Grand Traverse Bay and other natural features can lead to widely varying patterns. Since it’s not possible to cancel school for only a portion of the district, this leads to particularly tough calls.

“I’ve seen days where there’s nine inches of snow at West High School and nothing at all at Courtade Elementary,” VanWagoner says. “You just have to take all the information you have and make the best decision as a team.”

School districts are often the target of criticism for cancelling on days that don’t appear to be that bad, though Rothwell says conditions are often much worse than they seem.

“If we get a lot of snow and we get big drifts, it's a pretty easy call, but the ice is the biggest challenge for us,” he says. “I think last year there were a lot more challenging calls than this year, just because it was kind of a question mark with ice more than anything else.”

While most criticism seems to come from irate parents grumbling about “weak” snow days, school leaders also catch heat when they have school in conditions that certain parents or staffers are uncomfortable with.

“I'm a big believer in parent choice, and (parents) have the ability to make an excused absence that we will honor that if they feel that conditions are unsafe where they are,” VanWagoner says.

The Children’s House, largely by virtue of not having a bussing system, almost always has fewer snow days per year than TCAPS. But Shane still doesn’t expect anyone, particulary staff, to come in if they aren’t comfortable.

“Even if we don’t call school off, I always make it very clear to the staff that if they feel unsafe driving in because they’re driving in from far out…it’s OK,” she says. “We can cover the staffing; people aren’t going to have to use a personal day. I want people to make their decisions based on safety.”