In Tupper Lake, that question is ultimately answered by school Superintendent Jaycee Welsh. It is not a decision she takes lightly, and is made after consulting with a wide array of sources and data. Welsh detailed her process in an interview last week.

“The first part is knowing that bad weather is on the way,” she said. “I’m super grateful for all of our technology because we can actually know about that in advance.”

Welsh is typically an early riser and gets her days started around 5 a.m. When inclement weather is in the cards, she sets her alarm to 4:30 a.m. The first order of business, she said, is to check the radar.

Being able to visualize the position and direction of any heavy snow gives her a better idea of where conditions trend — for better or for worse — by the time buses are scheduled to run.

TLCSD Superintendent Jaycee Welsh scans the Weather Channel’s radar for northern New York in her office on Dec. 17 (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

After looking at the radar, Welsh opts for a less technological observation method.

“I do then look out my window,” she said. “Because from there, I can see three different streets, so I get a quick feeling of what the conditions are on those surfaces.”

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Calling around

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If conditions appear to possibly warrant a school delay or closure, Welsh said her next step is to call Tupper Lake’s road warriors.

“My first phone call — probably around 5 (a.m.) — is to the village DPW with Bob DeGrace,” Welsh said. “I’ve talked to him numerous times, and the department has been amazing.”

She said that her second phone call is to the town of Tupper Lake Superintendent of Highways Bill Dechene. Welsh said this gives her a bigger picture — literally — since the roads the town is responsible for clearing are spread over a larger area than the village lines.

“We have amazing road crews, both the village and the town,” she said. “Their collaboration is outstanding and every time I call, they answer the phone, regardless of what time it is.”

After talking with the village and town, Welsh’s attention turns back to the district’s team. She calls Alysia Hopkins, the district’s lead bus driver, and Sean Auclair, who is in charge of making sure the school’s grounds are clear and safely navigable by the time school is supposed to start.

“If any one of those four is telling me that something might not be ready, or some things are still in flux, I take a pause,” she said.

If at that point, it appears conditions may not be acceptable for school to open, Welsh tests things out for herself.

“I then go into my car and I start driving just to take a peek for myself what everything is doing,” she said.

After getting out on the roads for herself, Welsh said she may circle back to Hopkins or Auclair for an additional assessment before deciding what action to take.

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Decision time

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Welsh said her usual deadline to delay or close school is 5:30 a.m., as the district’s first bus rolls out onto the roads around 5:45 a.m. While extenuating circumstances may result in a later call, she said if at all possible, she tries to make a decision before buses are in motion.

Welsh said she tries to start with a two-hour delay, leaving the door open for a re-evaluation during that time for a possible eventual closing.

“I do like starting with two-hour delays because of the unpredictability of the weather patterns — especially with lake effect snow,” she said. “Those bands can change and all of a sudden, you get nothing, even if it’s really coming down hard early.”

Welsh said she understands that shifting from delays to closings, or dismissing early and/or cancelling after-school activities can be tough for families, who may have to juggle work schedules and other commitments. At the end of the day, however, Welsh said her calculus remains the same.

“We do whatever we feel that we need to do to ensure student safety,” she said.

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Big districts, bold decisions

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Welsh said that in many other areas of the state, school districts are geographically smaller and closer to each other, allowing superintendents to possibly collaborate with each other — as they face similar weather and road conditions — when considering a delay or closure.

That is not the case in the Adirondacks.

“Up here, we’re 22 miles from Saranac Lake,” she said. “The weather pattern can be completely different there and we’re a pretty big district as far as square mileage goes. What it can be doing in Piercefield versus what it can be doing here, for example, can be pretty tricky. It’s just a lot of variables like that, and I don’t think I could ever make decisions based on what neighboring districts are deciding.”

Welsh cited the Dec. 12 snowstorm as an example of how variable weather conditions can be between the Tri-Lakes communities.

“That day was tough because I was in Lake Placid for a conference, so I was doing everything from 45 minutes away,” she said. “A couple of people joked with me at the conference that I wore a path in the carpet. The conference started at 7:30 a.m. and we were in the middle of deciding if we were going to close or not.”

That day, heavy lake-effect snows and gusty winds pushed through the Tri-Lakes. However, they did not impact everywhere in the area at once. Locations to the west, such as Tupper Lake, saw more snow than those to the east.

To make matters more complicated, the morning started out calm, as the heaviest zone of lake-effect snow was ripping just north of Tupper Lake. Welsh — who grew up in Camden, a central New York community that routinely experiences lake-effect snow storms — knew that even if it wasn’t snowing heavily in Tupper Lake right when she first started looking at conditions that morning, trouble was brewing.

“I was in the hotel just watching my radar and I was like, ‘oh this is going to shift right into Tupper Lake. We are going to get pummeled. We are going to get a lot of snow,'” she said.

The school was originally on a two-hour delay for the day, but ended up closing. Tupper Lake received a foot of snow that day, according to an observation taken at the village’s post office and reported by the National Weather Service.

“I’m thankful we did make the call to close, because that whole day, between the wind and the lake effect snow, it was just a tough, tough day to be out on the roads,” Welsh said.

She added that while there are instances, such as Dec. 12, that warrant a closure, she is thankful that Tupper Lakers know how to deal with snow, allowing the school to operate as usual through less significant winter events that would paralyze districts in other parts of the state.

In addition to the Dec. 12 closing, the Tupper Lake Central School District has used one two-hour delay so far this season. Welsh said the school is allotted six “emergency days,” — meaning that it can close and it will not count against their calendar.

If the district uses less than six days, it will be able to tack them on as “extra” days off at the end of the school year. Conversely, if the district closes for more than six days, it will have to make them up by adding extra school day(s) at the end of the school year.

“Snow is not an anomaly to this area,” she said. “People know how to get through it and they know to take it slow. There are other districts in the state where they get a flurry and it becomes a two-hour delay. The Adirondacks, I am thankful to say, are tougher than that.”