To the SPA community,

Many thanks for your patience and understanding with today’s late start. Schedule alterations are always a challenge, and your cooperation and support are appreciated.

Although the snow has ended, we are now facing several days of remarkably frigid temperatures, even by Minnesota standards. The wind chills will drop precipitously beginning midday on Tuesday, and will remain dangerously cold until at least through the early morning hours of Thursday.

As of right now, the National Weather Service has issued a Wind Chill Warning from 3 p.m. Tuesday through 9 a.m. Thursday. After extensive conversations with the administrative team, we have developed the following plan:

• Tuesday and Wednesday: Because of the dangerously low wind chills, and our concern about anyone driving in such frigid conditions, we are taking the proactive step of canceling school and all school activities for both Tuesday and Wednesday. Because the wind chills on Tuesday morning are forecast to begin in the negative thirties and drop even further throughout the day, we would prefer to avoid putting anyone on the road at any time on Tuesday. Wednesday looks to be even worse, with wind chills plummeting to almost -50 overnight and remaining in the -30 to -40 range throughout the day, overnight, and into the early morning hours of Thursday.
• Thursday: Our schedule on Thursday is the most tenuous in terms of planning, but at the moment we are anticipating a late start at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning; students should not be dropped off at either campus prior to 9:30 a.m. We will be keeping a close eye on the forecast for Thursday and will update the community on Wednesday afternoon or early evening. With a late-start day on Thursday, we anticipate that all after-school activities and events would run as scheduled. We are currently working with Monarch, our bus company, on the possibility of shifting our normal morning bus routes to two hours later; we will contact bus families as soon as possible regarding busing on Thursday morning.

Please note that this plan may shift in the coming hours and days depending on how the cold front moves through. I urge you to continue to pay close attention to SPA’s website, social media, your texts and emails, and the local stations’ broadcast tickers for possible changes to this plan.

I do hope that this early notification will help with your planning and mitigate the inevitable inconvenience and frustration that accompanies schedule alterations such as these.

Once again, I thank you for your patience and understanding.

Bryn S. Roberts
Head of School