Laramie County School District #1 Superintendent Mark Stock says "a perfect storm" of conditions led to the decision to keep most district schools open on Tuesday.

He  says that had he known how weather conditions would develop later in the day, he would have made a different decision on school closures. He notes that around 3:30 am, when the district has several people in various parts of the city checking weather conditions, there was roughly three inches of snow on the ground and windy conditions, but nothing exceptional by local weather standards. He also says his decision to hold school was affected by the fact that several forecasts of severe winter weather recently have failed to materialize.

He says that around 1:30 pm 'the weather just got awful". But he says the problem by then was that it was impossible to mobilize enough buses to get students home much more than a half hour earlier than normal. He notes the buses ended up running on a regular schedule, adding that considering the small amount of time that would be saved combined with the fact that some students would be arriving home early without an adult present  led to that decision.

Stock says the timing for the worst part of the storm hitting the area "was terrible" and was one of the factors that led to the situation as it developed. He also says parents who could do so were allowed to pick up their kids early. Three rural schools in the district were closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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