“The snow day calculator says we have a 100% chance of a snow day tomorrow!” one student happily tells another. While that may excite you, the snow day calculator’s formula has at least one component that’s wrong: it takes previous snow days into account.

“I really have to make the decision based on the safety issues, not the previous snow days,” said superintendent Paul Stein. “Because if I feel like it’s an unsafe situation, no matter how many snow days there were, I’d have to call it.”

Safety is the primary concern of all superintendents, Interim Principal John Ritchie, who was once Superintendent-Principal of Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, agrees.

“I think the main factor for all of us was safety to the best of our knowledge,” Ritchie said. “Above all, safety, for both kids and teachers who had to drive long distances.”

To conclude the safety of getting to or leaving from school, Stein has a process with three steps. The first is to gather information from weather reports and blogs about the storm’s progress, nature and timing and the inches of snow predicted.

The second step involves other superintendents and finding out what information they’re getting.

“I actually have a group text with four or five superintendents, and we text each other around 4 to 4:30 in the morning, basically checking on what information we’re getting about the storm, what they’ve heard and the conditions of the streets in their individual towns,” Stein said.

His third step is to contact someone in Wayland and get information specifically about Wayland’s road conditions from them and the Department of of Public Works. They give him a sense about how effective clearing the roads will be and if they’ll be safe for commute.

“Then I put it all together, see what the other superintendents have done in the region and make a call depending on how severe it is or how clear it is,” Stein said. “I might need to wait a little longer to see if something else develops, or else I can call things right away.”

Another consideration is whether the winter storm will just cause a delay or an early release.

“A delayed opening happens when I think it will make a difference in terms of giving the Department of Works time to clean the roads and the parking lots,” Stein said. “If it won’t make a difference, then I won’t call a delayed opening.”

As for early releases, Stein says that for the most part he won’t call them, believing that usually they create unsafe situations, particularly for elementary school students.

“What happens particularly for elementary students who get into a situation where buses drop kids off, because parents can’t necessarily change their schedules, is they’re dropped off in big snow storms without a parent being able to greet them, which is a problem,” Stein said.

For delays and snow days, Stein tries to decide by 5 a.m. Earlier is better, he says, because it gives a chance for the reverse 911 calls to reach everyone, and it gives more warning to parents who work and have small children.

Ritchie adds that the decision needs to be made to reach both the morning news and the buses before they go out.

“If you don’t decide by I think 5:45 a.m., then it’s too late to stop the buses from going,” Ritchie said. “So that was sort of the deadline for all of us.”

Snow day decisions also come with complaints. For almost every decision, excluding big blizzards, complaints follow, whether they be that school should have been closed or kept open.

“One of the main concerns are teachers who have to drive often from long distances, who would say, ‘Maybe it’s fine in Sudbury, but I live in X and it’s impossible,’” Ritchie said. “So I always said very clearly to teachers, ‘look, if it’s a snowy day and you feel unsafe coming, just don’t come, I totally understand that.’”

On whether he feels the pressure of the Wayland legacy of few snow days, Stein reiterates that the main factor he’s thinking about is safety of students and teachers.

“I’m not doing things on any kind of abstract principle,” Stein said. “I’m really doing it on this sort of analysis of the storm to decide whether or not it will put people in harms way.”