Students grumbled about it on social media, but Gwinnett County Schools were in session on Thursday, despite other school districts calling it a snow day.

Sloan Roach, the executive director of communications for GCSD, says they made the announcement to be open just after 4:00 a.m.

"We had folks out driving the roads as early as 3:00 this morning to assess in real time how the roads really were here in Gwinnett," says Roach.  "That assessment led us to the decision that we could hold school today, that our buses would be fine.  Generally, the streets were fine here in Gwinnett."

Some students, however, were disappointed with the decision and the fact that the district waited until morning to announce that school would be in session after the previous day's inclement weather.

"We just wanted to make sure that we had the very best information about the situation here in Gwinnett before we made a decision that was going to impact the families of 174,000 students," says Roach.

Roach also points out that on a school day, the assumption should be that school will be in session, with the announcement of a closing being what is not the norm.  Closing announcements are made via the district's website, social media, and the news media.

"Bottom line, we do tell people that if bad weather comes in and we have to make the call, that we will do that usually by 6:00 in the morning," Roach says. "This morning, it was shortly after 4:00.  Days like this are a prime example of why we want to wait." 

Gwinnett County Schools have now used all three of the snow make-up days built in to the school calendar.  One was used last Monday, when students were off.  Since then, Roach says, they have missed two days of school, so students will be in school the remaining two make-up days:  March 13 and May 21. 

"If we were not using them as a make-up day, they would have been a student holiday," Roach explains.

The last day of school will now be one day later, May 21.  That date was already published in the calendar as a potential make-up day, so no one's summer vacation plans should be thrown off. 

Roach adds that the state's largest school system is dedicated to give students 180 days of education, although last year, school systems were given the flexibility, due to extreme weather, to complete the school year with fewer days.

"In Gwinnett, we do feel it is important for students to experience the full 180 days of school," says Roach.  "By law, that's how many days students are supposed to attend, and we feel that it is important that they attend so that we can make sure they learn everything they need to be successful in the next grade."

Last year, rather than shave days off the calendar, Gwinnett Schools extended several school days by 30 minutes each day to make up for the time lost due to icy weather.  Roach says they would do that again, if the bad weather isn't all behind them.