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Parents criticize Pleasant Valley after buses failed in extreme cold; superintendent defends remote-instruction decision
Summary
A parent criticized Pleasant Valley School District on Jan. 23 after her child was assigned to a virtual class and the district used a remote-instruction day when contracted buses would not start amid temperatures near -14°F.
A parent told the Pleasant Valley Board of Education on Jan. 23 that her daughter was moved into a virtual class for nine weeks and criticized the district for using remote instruction after buses failed to start amid an extreme cold snap.
“I cannot believe that I'm sending my child to brick-and-mortar school because I believe that is the best education for them. And now they're gonna sit in the classroom with a teacher in the room who's not really — they're just there fixing monitored behavior. The only way they can contact their teacher is via email. That's not education,” the parent told the board during public comment.
The parent also raised concerns about recurring tax increases, administrative pay and school budget choices during the public-comment portion of the meeting.
District response Superintendent Dr. Conrad described the operational decisions that led the district to pivot to a remote instruction day on one of the extreme-weather dates. She said buses — which are contracted — repeatedly failed to start in the predawn hours, and staff added additional anti-freeze additives and took other precautions.
Dr. Conrad said the district faced "negative 14 degrees" and that, after consulting transportation staff, she determined an in‑person start could not be guaranteed. "I will go on the record and say this," she told the board, "that there was never an intention to do a remote instruction day. That pivot was a result of factors of negative 14 degrees and degrees that prevented our buses from operating the way that they should have." She added that the district did not charge taxpayers for the days buses did not operate.
Board and community follow-up concerns Board members and community speakers asked for more detail about why nearby districts had buses running while Pleasant Valley’s fleet struggled and questioned whether food and meal distributions were affected. Dr. Conrad said food prepared for missed days remained available to students when in-person instruction resumed and that administrators were reviewing bus reliability and steps to prevent recurrence.
On staffing for the specific virtual-placement complaint, the superintendent said one teacher expected to return at the start of the fourth nine-week marking period and another vacancy remained under active recruitment.
Ending Board members told the public they would continue to investigate transportation reliability, the district’s processes for substituting remote instruction in emergencies and staffing to minimize future disruptions. The district scheduled further internal follow-ups and said it will continue to communicate with families about operational decisions during extreme weather.
