On Monday, October 30th, Westford Public Schools students woke up to their first “snow day” of the school year. However, there was no snow on this late fall day. Schools were closed due to a large, hurricane-like storm that rocked Massachusetts on Sunday night, downing trees and taking out power for a large number of Westford residents.

The Westford Police provided an update on road closures due to downed power lines and trees on Monday morning. They reported closures on Groton Road on West Street, West Street, Polley Road, parts of Pine Hill Road, Tenney Road, and Griffin Road. They advised residents to use caution and to not touch any downed wires.

Sunday night’s storm came with strong wind gusts and an impressive amount of rainfall. In the early morning, Superintendent Bill Olsen posted a message on the Westford Public Schools website explaining his reasoning for cancelling school.

He explained that due to all of the downed power lines across town and street closures, he would be closing schools for the day.

In my opinion, I completely agree with Olsen’s choice to close schools today. The superintendent must take all students into consideration when it comes to choosing whether or not to close schools. The commute to school could have been unsafe for Westford students. For students who walk to school, the walk had a potential to be very dangerous with downed trees, let alone the continuous wind and rain that perpetuated throughout Monday morning.

Additionally, not only could the commute to school have been dicey, some students simply may not have been able to get to their school on Monday morning.

For example, my drive to school is normally about seven minutes. Today, it would have taken up to a a half hour due to the road closures and downed trees in my area. I would have had to cut into Groton and gone around the closed roads, making my commute much longer than normal.

In the end, Olsen’s choice to cancel school was the smart, safe choice. The storm made for some poor road conditions and sending students to school could have been quite dangerous.

Grade: A+