How Many Days Average is MCPS Closed Per Year?

[Anonymous]

This is our second year dealing with this. How many days on average is MCPS closed for weather conditions? I think we have had 5-6 closings this year already. Is this normal?

Our daycare was open all of the time so I never paid much attention to MCPS closings.

[Anonymous]

This is not normal.

[Anonymous]

I'd say about 2-3 is the usual number. Last year (2012-2013) was 2 (for Hurricane Sandy). I think the 2011-2012 school year might have been 0! 2010-2011 was 2 or 3 days for the last "big" snowstorm in Jan. 2011. Lots of power outages in MoCo.

In 2009-2010, we had 9 days... would have been more, except one of the mega snowstorms came a few days before Winter break, so they only missed 3 school days.

[Anonymous]

Given that MCPS budgets for 4 closure days that's probably the average. This year we've had 5 so far, and probably 1-2 to go given weather patterns this year. Typically the closer in and smaller jurisdictions close less than the biggest and/or farthest away counties. So Arlington is small, and on average a couple degrees warmer than FFX or MoCo, so has fewer closures. Same for DC. MoCo is huge and tends to have different weather patterns up county vs down county. Most of this seems to be because we are often on the rain/snow line so a couple degrees temp difference makes a big difference. This morning for example it was 32 in Bethesda when I left home and still icy. In DC it was 34-35, enough to have melted any ice if they even had any.