Post last updated at 9:22 a.m. Friday, Jan. 10:
Lawrence Public Schools will be closed Friday due to overnight snowfall and icy conditions.
District spokesperson Julie Boyle sent an email to staff and families at around 5:15 a.m. Friday, writing that the district appreciates the high rate of attendance Thursday — the only day of school this week due to the aftermath of a winter storm.
“We apologize that the timing of this weather event was not conducive to an earlier determination and announcement,” Boyle said in the email. “As always, this decision was made in the interest of the safety of students, staff, and our school families.”
All district activities are canceled, and all buildings will be closed. Only staff with certain essential tasks should report to work, after consulting with their supervisor, Boyle said.
School was also canceled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — the first three days back following winter break — because of blizzard cleanup efforts underway, icy streets and extremely cold wind chills that all made for dangerous conditions.
Several school cancellations, or reductions in instructional hours, could add up and require the district to make up time. Boyle said Monday that plans for the school board meeting on Monday, Jan. 13 include an update on state requirements and the district’s current status on inclement weather days.
Other area closures for Friday, Jan. 10:
• Eudora, Baldwin City, Tonganoxie, Perry-Lecompton, McLouth, Basehor-Linwood and Santa Fe Trail schools will also be closed Friday.
• Haskell Indian Nations University will be closed and will have limited operations on Friday.
• Lawrence Arts Center will open at noon Friday.
• The Senior Resource Center for Douglas County, including Senior Wheels, will be closed.
• Baker University campuses are closed.
• Corpus Christi Catholic School is closed Friday, as is St. John Catholic School, following the Lawrence school district’s lead.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.
If you have news tips, questions, comments, concerns, compliments or corrections for our team, please reach out and let us know what’s on your mind. Email us at Hello@LawrenceKSTimes.com (don’t forget the KS!), or find more contact info and a quick contact form at LawrenceKSTimes.com/contact.
Follow us so you won’t miss the local news that matters most to you:
Severe weather resources
Get warm in Lawrence:
• See this page for locations to get warm during the day and overnight, where to get help for pets and more.
National Weather Service local office (Topeka):
• Find the latest weather forecast info and severe weather advisories for the Lawrence area at this link.
• In the event of rapidly changing severe weather, such as tornadoes, the NWS posts frequent updates on Twitter, @NWSTopeka. You do not need a Twitter account to see tweets from NWS.
• NWS is also on Facebook, facebook.com/NWSTopeka.
• Call 785-234-2592 to hear the forecast.
City of Lawrence snow info:
• The city has snow information and a map at lawrenceks.org/snow that shows information about road conditions and where snowplows have been. The city typically begins snow and ice control for residential roadways when 2 or more inches of snowfall or icing occurs.
Douglas County Emergency Management:
• Follow @DgCoEM on Twitter or Douglas County, KS- Emergency Management on Facebook, facebook.com/dgcoem.
• Sign up to receive emergency alerts at dgcoks.org/emalerts.
• Find lots of tips on severe weather and other emergency preparedness on DgCoEM’s website at douglascountyks.org/emergency-management.
• Report storm damage (for non-emergencies only, and after storm danger has passed) by calling the nonemergency dispatch line at 785-843-0250 or 785-832-7509.
Evergy outages:
• Check the status of power outages on the Evergy outage map, outagemap.evergy.com.
• Report a power outage at evergy.com/report-outage, or call 800-544-4857.
• For down powerlines, call Evergy’s emergency line, 800-383-1183, if above-ground lines are arcing or making contact with trees or vegetation. Call 911 immediately if overhead power lines are on the ground or a fire starts.
Air quality:
• Check the current air quality index in Lawrence and elsewhere through AirNow, airnow.gov.
Latest Lawrence news:
Tom Harper/Lawrence Times
