Arlington Public Schools leaders have set their plans in place for deciding when to close schools for wintry weather.
The school system has 12 snow days built into the calendar for elementary school, 15 for middle and high school. Should those numbers be exceeded, leaders plan to move to virtual learning — a staple of the pandemic era — rather than lengthen the school year to meet the state minimum of 180 days or 990 hours of instructional time.
“We hope we don’t have 15 days of snow, [although] maybe the students do,” Superintendent Francisco Durán told School Board members at their Nov. 13 meeting.
As in past years, county school leaders hope to be able to make a call on opening, delaying or closing schools the evening before. The fallback, if weather conditions are in flux, is to make a final decision by 4:30 a.m.
Acknowledging how disruptive closings and delays can be, “we make every attempt to notify families by 6 p.m. the night before — but we don’t want to do that without certainty,” the superintendent said.
Parents are advised to plan ahead to meet any eventuality.
While school districts across Northern Virginia share communication on weather conditions, Arlington will be making its own calls, the superintendent said.
“We do try to work together, but it’s not always going to be unified,” Durán said.
The 2025-26 school year marks the sixth winter season Durán is running the school system and has the final say on keeping schools open or closing them when Mother Nature throws snowballs.
For decades, his predecessors tended to take a harder line against closing schools compared to some school divisions in the outer suburbs. Arlington tended to follow D.C.’s lead and keep schools open even as areas like Fairfax and Loudoun counties closed them.
But during the tenure of Patrick Murphy in 2015, the school system once stayed open, only to find weather conditions turn unexpectedly harsh. The backlash from parents was fierce.
Since that time, Arlington school leaders have been more likely to play it safe rather than sorry.
