Updated 4:45 p.m. Tuesday: Schools will remain closed Wednesday. See this post for full details.
School officials are weighing whether to close schools Wednesday, but said Tuesday morning it's too early to make a prediction for Wednesday.
Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman Derek Turner said the school system will announce a decision by 5 a.m. Wednesday at the latest.
Turner said crews were about 60 percent complete with clearing school parking lots and walkways as of 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Crews working hard to free about 200 @MCPS school busses from #Snowzilla's icy grasp #mdtraffic pic.twitter.com/W1iNVnR0aT
— Brad Freitas (@NewsChopperBrad) January 26, 2016
Original report – 4:50 p.m. Monday: Snow plowing and removal at the county school system’s more than 200 schools and other facilities were 50 percent complete as of Monday afternoon, according to Turner.
Turner said operations staff for MCPS got a slow start because many neighborhood streets around school buildings were impassable. Information on when the school system will make an announcement regarding its status for Wednesday wasn’t available.
On Sunday, MCPS announced schools would be closed Tuesday, Jan. 26. It announced on Monday that administrative offices would also be closed Tuesday. Schools were already scheduled to be closed on Monday for a teacher professional day. The teacher professional day was canceled, as were all childcare and community activities in school buildings.
Make-up exams scheduled for Friday, when there was no school because of the start of the snowstorm, will be pushed back to the first day schools reopen. MCPS said Monday that the make-up testing will be incorporated into a regular instructional day so all students, even those who don’t have make-up exams, must go to school.
Turner said end-of-semester grades must be posted by teachers on the first day back of school.
MCPS must dig out parking lots, bus loops and sidewalks at 198 elementary, middle and high schools around the county, plus other schools for special programs, bus depots and administrative office facilities.
Workers move snow Monday at Bethesda Elementary School. Credit: Aaron Kraut
