The City of Lethbridge spent Monday making strides to dig itself free from the almost 60 centimetres of snow that accumulated over the weekend’s two-day storm.

With thick blankets of snow coating the roads, public and school transit were out of operation on Monday, which meant schools across the city were also forced to close their doors.

“The basic guideline is: if school buses do not operate, then we close our schools,” said Cheryl Gilmore, superintendent of the Lethbridge School District.

All schools within the Palliser School Division, Lethbridge School District and Holy Spirit Catholic School Division were closed Monday due to poor road conditions and cancellation of school and public transit.

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While these districts sent out website updates and social media messages Sunday evening relating to Monday’s closures, Gilmore said sometimes parents can miss the memo. She added schools need to have back-up options in place for students that still show up for classes on days when schools are closed.

“In the event that a parent or caregiver did not get the messaging somehow, because that can certainly happen, every school has two staff members that are designated to be at the school at the regular time in case there are students who arrive to ensure that they’re not locked out of the school,” Gilmore said.

She said in hopes of avoiding these mishaps, the school boards work closely with the city to determine as early as possible any closures that may be taking place due to weather.

“We’ve had the experience before when a decision wasn’t made until early morning hours where it makes very difficult for families to plan, and we can appreciate that,” she said.

“We try to [make] the call it as fast as possible the day or evening before. Of course, it’s never perfect, but we do our very best given the information we have.”

While cancelling transit operations in the city is not a common practice, Kevin Ponech, the transit manager for the City of Lethbridge, said on Monday that it was the safest action to take for everyone.

“It’s not a typical thing and this wasn’t a typical storm,” he said.

“It doesn’t happen very often where our transit can’t go. But, just because of the amount of snow we got… and how quickly it came, it just created more hazards out there.”

Ponech said the decision to cancel transportation, especially relating to schools, is not an easy one, but this weekend’s unseasonable snowfall created many risks for both drivers and students.

“If we get delayed on a school bus, a lot of [times] students can be out there for half an hour or 45 minutes before we can even dispatch another bus to get out there, so we don’t want to put those kids at risk. So a lot of times we just cancel it and say, ‘We can’t provide reliable service.’”

All transit and schools in Lethbridge re-opened as usual Tuesday.

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