Rochester superintendent becomes a snow-day superhero

ROCHESTER – To hear Kent Pekel tell it, it was his dog Kobe who made the call to cancel school on Thursday.

That's the video message Pekel, Rochester Public Schools superintendent, sent out Wednesday as the second wave of last week's snowstorm hit the area. Last Tuesday, he shared a Shakespearean plea from a Century High School student, who requested Pekel "calleth school off during the present day" because "the weather is frail tomorrow."

Pekel responded on social media he would, in fact, call a snow day due to the weather.

"Start reading your Shakespeare, everyone," he wrote.

Pekel has become known for his lighthearted approach to snow days this year. As winter weather plays havoc with school district schedules across the state, the Rochester superintendent is getting attention for his decisions — and reactions — to closing schools.

"Snow days are one of the few times most students directly care about a superintendent," Pekel said. "And I'm eager to have as many connections as I can get with our students directly."

Pekel and other school administrators consult weather reports and transportation experts before calling off school, a decision he said is made "with limited information on very short notice."

"I never would have made it … in these terrible road conditions if I didn't have a powerful all-terrain vehicle like my Kia Optima," Pekel said in the Twitter post, which has been viewed some 293,000 times — more than 16 times the number of students in the district.

Since then, students have messaged Pekel asking to cancel school — sometimes just so they can have extra time for homework. One student even turned Pekel into a superhero for an art project — Captain America — for the number of times he's called off school. Another asked for snow-day data to calculate the probability of a snow day for an algorithms class.

Rochester has had six snow days this school year, which is in line with other Minnesota districts as school administrators debate calling snow days or distance learning (or e-learning) when the weather gets bad.

Minneapolis Public Schools has called five e-learning days this year; St. Paul Public Schools has called four and one snow day. In St. Cloud, school leaders have called two snow days and four e-learning days.

Pekel said he and other district officials prefer snow days to e-learning, in part because they're concerned students don't learn as well from home and because elementary students in Rochester typically leave their computer tablets at school, making an e-learning day difficult.

"I would not do that lightly for lots of different reasons," he said. "Certainly the students who were thrilled to get a snow day in February might not remember that with quite as much joy were they to have an added day in June."