As the weather finally turns for the worse this winter, students cross their fingers for a snow day and turn to the Instagram comment section of Olentangy Local Schools. On Tuesday, road conditions were severe, yet the school district decided to send students to school. As a result, an Instagram post on the Olentangy Local Schools account was flooded with 479 comments from angry students.
Many profiles are attacking Superintendent Todd Meyer after a Berlin Bus crashed on Tuesday morning and student parking lots were a mess. The snow unexpectedly started at around 6 in the morning, not leaving enough time for buses to check again before beginning their routes. This also led to many roads not being plowed which left for dangerous driving conditions. Once students arrived at the school they were greeted by an unplowed parking lot, which led to chaos.
“I couldn’t even see my parking spot,” Junior Ria Naraian said. “It was a mess. Cars were parked completely over the lines.”
On the OLSD Instagram posts since this incident, the comment section has gotten larger and much more inappropriate. Many contain explicit language, and some go as far as attacking and threatening Mr. Meyer and his family. Others dramatized their lack of a snow day experience, and a few even threatened to unionize and protest.
“I tried walking to my bus stop and slipped and broke my back in half,” one user said. “I’m now paralyzed in all limbs.” This exaggeration is evident throughout the comment section.
On Tuesday at 8:50 p.m., OLSD sent out a district-wide message that school was canceled on Wednesday. Many speculate that classes were canceled as a reparation since conditions were worse on Tuesday than on Wednesday. The school sent out texts and phone calls to students and parents, as well as an Instagram post announcing the closure. The Instagram post reached 719 comments filled with praise for the superintendent, a complete flip from the day before.
Students continue their pursuit in attempts to get further days of school off, however the Olentangy Local School Instagram has turned off their comment section, restricting students from getting their wishes across through the account. Without this platform, OLSD students will just have to hope for possible dangerous and snowy weather.
Despite student’s and parent’s justifiable frustration, many are unaware that the superintendent is not solely responsible for deciding whether or not school is canceled. A team of “school district employees”, as stated on the Olentangy Local Schools website, travels around the school district before 5 a.m. to evaluate road conditions, and then decide about a snow day.
“Not having school on Tuesday wasn’t good for student morale because all of us were expecting a four-day weekend,” said Sophomore Will Wang. “So although I could understand not having a snow day on Tuesday, I was disappointed regardless.”
Additionally, many point out that conditions on Tuesday morning were not as severe at 5 a.m. when the school district employees would have evaluated the roads. The roads began to get bad around 6 a.m., which may have been too late for the district to announce.
“Having school on Tuesday made me lose respect for those in charge,” Junior Saniya Teni said. “They allowed for major crashes to occur.”
