School closures stretch into second week across Southeast after storms

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School systems across the Southeast extended weather-related closures into a second week after a new round of winter storms compounded problems that had already delayed reopening, according to the Associated Press. The storms brought frigid temperatures, outages, and icy road conditions, which left some districts weighing remote instruction alongside plans to recover lost instructional time.

The article said a series of winter storms left tens of thousands without electricity and made some roads too icy for travel, complicating efforts to reopen schools from Mississippi to Maryland. In Nashville, Tennessee, some outages from a storm a week earlier were still unresolved when another hit over the weekend, the report said.

Power outages also shaped what students could do at home. The report said nearly 75,000 customers in Mississippi and Tennessee were without power as of Monday afternoon, citing poweroutage.us. In Belzoni, Mississippi, Chiquitta Fields said her home lost power during the previous storm and she and her four children stayed in a hotel for the past week along with a 1-year-old grandchild who needs oxygen. Fields said she had spent about $700 on hotel costs and was unable to work during the closure period because her job is as an assistant elementary teacher.

Fields described the strain the disruption caused for her children as well. “It’s been stressful for them, with the moving back and forth from one place and to another,” she said. “Children don’t adjust well when you do all that.” The AP report said severe-weather closures can affect students’ learning, particularly when families face additional stressors tied to the outages and disruption at home.

To illustrate the broader learning impact, the article cited a report from the Northwest Evaluation Association, a not-for-profit education research firm. It said missing a day of school from a weather-related closure translates to almost four days of lost learning time due to other exacerbating factors in a student’s personal life, including disruptions to housing and poor mental health.

The AP report also described which systems were affected and how closures varied by location. It said public school systems in and around major cities—including Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis and Raleigh—were part of the wave of closures, while other large Southern cities such as Louisville operated on a two-hour delay Monday after missing school last week. In North Carolina, much of the state’s public school districts remained closed Monday, with some extending closures to at least Tuesday, and in Mississippi, some districts canceled classes through the rest of the week in the northern part of the state.

The report said power outages contributed to closures in Nashville as well, and that at the peak of outages, 71 schools had no power or partial service, according to a Metro Nashville Public Schools news release. It added that all of the schools had their power restored by Monday afternoon.

On how districts planned to replace lost instruction, some attempted remote learning but faced limits where power outages affected students’ ability to work from home. The report said parents in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools described remote schoolwork as manageable; it cited Olivia White, who said her children were able to complete remote work after the district canceled classes. In Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the report said schools would be closed for at least seven straight days beginning Tuesday, and that the district said it was providing daily instructional resources and learning packets for students to access at home.

The learning packets, the article said, covered subjects including language arts, literacy, mathematics and social studies depending on grade level, and also included mental health activities broken out by age group. Other districts chose a more traditional snow day approach, telling students they had no schoolwork and encouraging them to go out and enjoy the weather.

Across the region, districts were also considering whether to add additional school days to make up for lost time. The report said Metro Nashville Public Schools told parents in an email that the district plans to convert a teacher professional development on Presidents’ Day into a regular school day.