Mother Nature has provided plenty of opportunities over the past month to use our agency weather announcement procedures. Now that the weather has settled down (at least for now!), it’s a good time to step back and review. Below are three of the most commonly asked questions about our weather procedures.
If an AEA 267 service delivery center closes (i.e. Marshalltown, Cedar Falls or Clear Lake office), are all events scheduled in that office cancelled for the day?
Yes.
What about internal meetings? When professional development courses and workshops are cancelled are internal meetings automatically cancelled also?
No. Internal meetings are held at the discretion of the person leading the meeting. Many factors can be considered including the number of staff involved, where they are driving from and the length of the meeting. Be sure to check with the person leading the internal meeting if you have questions on bad weather days.
Sometimes it takes the news media or Snowcap awhile to share an announcement about an office closing or PD cancellations. Why is that? What if I need to know right away?
There are four ways to learn about whether the office is closed or PD is cancelled: 1.) the agency website; 2.) by calling our announcements line at 1-866-923-1089; 3.) signing up for email and/or text message alerts via Snowcap; or 4.) the news media. Of these four methods, the AEA 267 website and announcements line are by far the fastest. Generally speaking, within about ten minutes of a decision being made, these two resources are updated. The news media and Snowcap are “third party” carriers of our message and there are many variables that can delay timeliness including the number of other weather related announcements they are dealing with that day. When you need to know right away, check the website or announcements line first!
For a complete list of Frequently Asked Questions, refer to our staff website at: www.aea267.k12.ia.us/staff (user name: aeastaff and password: aea267ia) and look under “For Your Reference” on the right of the page.
It would be nice that when you call the number for the closings, that when all of the classes are cancelled that it would also say that our building is still open and the hours are…
Last week there was false information on radio and TV in southern region. The announcement stated “AEA 267 Marshalltown closed” and the office was still open. This is very confusing!!
A few of the television stations in particular have had difficulty getting our messages exactly right. Even when we contain our messages to their character limits, at times they abbreviate messages which can be misleading. It’s a good idea to check the website or call the announcements line if you have any questions. We have the most control over these sources of information.