Dear Parents and Community Members:

As weather conditions continue to develop across the Houston region as a result of Tropical Storm Imelda and we assess the status of all HISD campuses, the district is following established protocols for determining closures or delays at schools and district facilities.

This process includes:

Days before weather events, the interim superintendent engages in numerous conference calls with the National Weather Service, Houston TranStar, other city, county, and emergency management agencies, and school district superintendents from surrounding areas.

As the weather event nears, the frequency of the conference calls increases.

The morning of the weather event, the interim superintendent takes part in a conference call at 3 a.m. HISD Risk Management team also takes part in conference calls with emergency agencies.

Using data, analysis, and recommendations from the National Weather Service, TranStar and city, county, and emergency management agencies, the interim superintendent makes a decision on closures or delays considering the safety and welfare of students and staff.

In today’s case, the weather event unfortunately took a turn that was unforeseen by many area school districts and agencies. Throughout the day, we took proactive measures to keep our students and staff safe. We followed the emergency management officials’ advice to shelter in place and maintain normal dismissal times.

The safety of our students, parents and staff is always our number one priority, and we will continue to heed the advice of city and county leaders as well as emergency management officials in our decision-making process for campus and district operations.

For more information about out school closing procedures please click here: HoustonISD.org/Emergencies.

Sincerely,

Grenita F. Lathan, Ph.D.

HISD Interim Superintendent