CMCSS | Clarksville-Montgomery County School System

CMCSS Schools 2-Hour Delay Thursday, May 9

All CMCSS schools will operate on a 2-hour delay tomorrow, Thursday, May 9. With the expected strong storms, additional rain, and flooding overnight, the delay will provide additional time to ensure buildings are operational, and it will improve visibility for the morning commute. We will update families early tomorrow morning if there is a need for an additional delay or closure.

Update and Appreciation

All students have been transported home. We cannot reiterate enough our appreciation for your patience and understanding today. Thank you to our bus drivers and Transportation Department for working diligently to transport students home during this severe weather. Thank you to our faculty, staff, and administrators who stayed late to ensure students were safe at school until they could get home. Thank you to our families for adjusting plans and for the many who jumped in to support schools as we sheltered in place together this afternoon.

Our Operations Department continuously monitors the weather. From our briefings with the National Weather Service around 9 p.m. last evening and again at 3 a.m. this morning, the main concern was for the line of storms that will move in later tonight and overnight. Based on that guidance from the National Weather Service, leadership discussed early this morning that we would not make any operational changes but would remain on high alert, closely monitoring the weather if we needed to make any shifts.

Weather changes quickly, and we needed to make several shifts this afternoon. It takes around 3.5 to 4 hours to transport all students home on a typical school day, so by the time the storms began to intensify earlier than expected, an early dismissal was not an option. We know not all families may have agreed with our decision to dismiss on regular schedule. Many families who had the option chose to pick up students early today. We also received appreciation from families who were working or otherwise could not be at home with children, who were glad their children could be in a safe place. Please know that safety will always be our top priority, and we will always strive to make the best decision based on the information we have at the time.

We value the feedback we have received from families today, both appreciation and concern. It has been a challenging day with this unusual outbreak of so many storms. After the devastation and tragedy our community experienced in December, we have heard from several families who expressed their sense of safety with the structural integrity of our facilities compared to their homes. We observed this with the damage in December and were reassured about the designated safe areas in our buildings.

There is the potential for a long night for our community. As we saw in a National Weather Service briefing, “don’t be scared, just be prepared.” Ensure your family knows your severe weather plans and stay tuned to the latest weather updates. Please stay safe and alert!