PARMA, Ohio — Parma City School District is canceling classes due to the extreme temperatures is one of many districts that will be closed on Tuesday due to heat.
Superintendent Charles Smialek told News 5 it’s out of an abundance of caution.
Tuesday is supposed to be the district’s first day of school.
But Smialek believes these high temperatures make it horribly uncomfortable for students and staff to be productive in the classroom.
Smialek told News 5 this isn’t an easy decision. However, he says the district has been watching the forecast for the last week and is concerned for people’s safety.
He understands a lot of students and staff have been anticipating coming back to school on Tuesday and their decision to close may cause some inconvenience to parents.
Yet Smialek says he doesn’t feel it’s in the best interest of anyone to have to teach or learn in these extreme weather conditions.
Smialek says the district has calamity days built into their school calendar for situations like this one – so that’s why they moved forward with canceling classes.
“In all honesty though, when we're looking at and we look at, real feel and our real field temperature tomorrow afternoon, early afternoon hours is above 95 – 97 degrees, and when you consider that, you know, a lot of our classrooms are actually built in the 1920s, 1930s and may, may only have one electrical outlet, so we can't even really weren't a whole lot of, you know, fans in our classrooms,” said Smialek.
Smialek expects students and staff should be able to return to class on Wednesday, so he encourages everyone to save their first day of school excitement for then.
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