Some Northern Colorado schools to release early Thursday due to hot weather
Multiple schools in the Poudre School District in Northern Colorado plan to release early on Thursday due to forecast high temperatures and inadequate air conditioning.
School officials said many campuses lack air conditioning or have it only in specific rooms, such as computer labs and media centers. Because of interconnected bus routes, they say that they can't release students at individual elementary and middle schools without releasing them all. Thus, the following schools will release two hours early on Thursday:
- All elementary schools except the mountain schools
- All middle schools
- All early childhood programs
- Centennial High School
- Polaris Expeditionary Learning School
- Poudre Community Academy
The students will receive their regularly scheduled breakfast and lunch.
The cancellations for these schools also affect afternoon field trips, afternoon early childhood sessions and after-school activities. Those who ride the bus will be dropped off at their regular stops two hours earlier than normal.
School officials say the morning early childhood sessions will take place as scheduled, and the full-day sessions will be dismissed two hours early.
Classes will continue as normal for:
- Fort Collins, Fossil Ridge, Poudre and Rocky Mountain high schools
- Timnath and Wellington middle-high schools
- Poudre Global Academy
- Career Tech Center
- PSD Transitions programs
- All mountain schools
The school district said that high school activities and athletics will also take place as scheduled, but middle school after-school activities and athletics are canceled districtwide. Charter schools will decide on an individual basis whether to release students early.
Poudre School District said that the 2024 Debt-Free Mill Levy has enabled it to install air conditioning systems at two schools, with two more currently in progress. However, the district says there hasn't been enough time to complete the 30 schools that still need air conditioning, and the process will take several years.
Officials said they're also monitoring high temperatures forecast for Friday, but have not yet made a decision on if the schools will release early that day.
