Common sense says school should have been closed on Tuesday. At 7 in the morning, wind chills reached nearly minus 20 degrees, temperatures capable of causing frostbites within tens of minutes. Meanwhile, a large majority of high school students are without their own cars and licenses, instead subject to notoriously, untimely, and unreliable busing systems.

Due to the weather, Evanston Township High School canceled in-person classes, as did Notre Dame College Prep, as did most schools throughout the Chicagoland area. Alternatively, Deerfield and Highland Park High School delayed classes by two hours. These schools all enacted severe weather protocols because the temperature was minus 20 degrees.

It’s simple. That’s what they’re there for.

Instead, Niles North administration opted to keep its school up and running as normal. Whatever rationale went into the decision is unbeknownst to me. It certainly isn’t clear from the two vague emails sent by the administration—the first announcing school would be open, and the second acknowledging the blowback yet doubling down, offering no explanation to boot.

I’m left to believe it was a tone-deaf attempt to maintain normalcy. If so, it didn’t work.

Hardly anyone showed up. Comparatively, school was a ghost town. From what my eyes could tell, attendance in my classes ranged from 30-60% capacity. Teachers were left to either squander their lesson plans on half-empty classrooms or give up and punt the day entirely.

It was a waste of everyone’s time. It was a waste of a school day.

It’s simple: Niles North made a decision that defied common sense. They quickly heard back from students and parents and maintained their decision nonetheless. So, they were ignored. It’s not exactly a travesty, but it is a dubious moment of poor leadership. The decision to keep Niles North open in minus 20-degree wind chills was an incredibly stubborn and shortsighted one. 

But listen, I’m no critic. Leading a high school isn’t easy. It means hard decisions and lose-lose situations. This, however, was not one of them. This was common sense.