GCS Monitors Hurricane Florence
Update Sunday, September 16
Greenville County Schools will operate on a regular schedule Monday, September 17.
The Inclement Conditions Evaluation (ICE) team was deployed this afternoon to check all schools and locations for possible power outages, storm debris and flooding.
A few buses throughout the county may need to be rerouted due to debris, but those will be minimal.
Update Friday 4:30pm
Weekend activities are cancelled for Greenville County Schools. The Greenville County College Fair scheduled for Monday and Tuesday has been postponed to October 18 and 19. Many college representatives were unable to travel to Greenville because of weather conditions in the Carolinas.
A decision about school on Monday will be made no earlier than Sunday evening.
Update Thursday, September 13, 3:40pm
Greenville County Schools officials continue to track Hurricane Florence. At this time there is nothing in the forecast that would cause us to cancel school on Friday. Parents who have concerns about the safety of their children have the authority to keep them at home. The absence would be unexcused but students would be allowed to make up missed work.
The following schedule changes are in effect:
- All varsity athletic events will be held tonight.
- After-school and evening events planned for tomorrow will be permitted, but must conclude by 7pm.
- Weekend events are cancelled.
These decisions were re-affirmed by the 2pm Thursday hurricane update provided by the National Weather Service that predicts the arrival of strong winds at 8pm Friday. State regulations prohibit the operation of school buses with 30mph sustained winds and/or 45mph gusting winds. We will be monitoring wind speed and could make adjustments to this schedule.
Update - September 12, 2018
Greenville County Schools will make the following schedule changes because of predicted tropical storm force winds associated with Hurricane Florence.
- All sub-varsity athletic events will be cancelled or played tonight, Wednesday, September 12.
- All varsity athletic events, in and out of district, will be held on Thursday evening with a preferred start time of 6:30pm, but no later than 7pm.
- After school events planned for Friday will be permitted, but must conclude by 7pm.
- Weekend events including a districtwide high school band exhibition and athletic tournaments are cancelled.
These decisions were made based on the 11am hurricane update provided by the national weather service that predicts the arrival of strong winds at 8pm Friday. State regulations prohibit the operation of school buses with 30mph sustained winds and/or 45mph gusting winds. We will be monitoring wind speed and could make adjustments to this schedule.
Greenville County Schools will continue to track the storm and stay in constant communication with emergency preparedness officials, but at this time we see nothing in the forecast for Thursday and Friday that would cause us to cancel school. Parents who have concerns about the safety of their children always have the authority to keep them at home.
Update - September 11, 2018
Greenville County Schools administration is directing schools who are hosting Thursday night sub-varsity games to move those games to Wednesday (or cancel).
This will free up Thursday night and provide maximum flexibility regarding scheduling of this week’s varsity games.
GCS plans to make a decision about football and all extracurricular events (volleyball, cross country, band, field trips, etc.) by mid-afternoon on Wednesday.
All trips headed east through this weekend are canceled. Wind and rain will be taken into consideration for safety of travel in cars and buses and potential for power outages. We will not host events if winds from the storm make it unsafe to operate buses.
We will consider requests from other districts to move varsity games from Friday night and will approve those when possible based on predicted weather conditions and student safety.
The Greenville County Schools Inclement Conditions Evaluation (ICE) team is closely monitoring forecasts including the predicted path of Hurricane Florence to ensure that we are positioned to respond to any conditions that may impact our operations. Impacts to our operations may be direct from water or wind or indirect by assisting in evacuation or sheltering.
We have cancelled or rescheduled all field trips that would take GCS students, staff and athletes toward the coast through the weekend. We do not want to create an additional burden for the low country by sending people to an area that may require evacuation.
At this time we have received no indication from the Governor’s Office or SC Emergency Preparedness that the state owned school buses assigned to GCS will be needed for evacuations. Should that order come, we would handle it as we did when the buses were commandeered two years ago by continuing with our regular schedules and excusing transportation related absences.
We are in close communication with Greenville County Emergency Preparedness. We will post updates to our website and social media accounts. Parents can sign up for alerts by texting follow @gcsalerts to 40404. Be sure to include a space between the word follow and the @ sign.