During the coldest days of the year, Prince William parents can expect their children’s schools will bend the rules, allowing students to wear coats or jackets during passing times, which take them outside of the main school building.
According to Phil Kavits, Director of Communications Services for Prince William County Schools, the school division prohibits middle school students from wearing outerwear or backpacks inside the building; both coats and backpacks should be stored inside students' lockers.
“It goes back to the early days when the ideas of trench coats emerged as a national issue of concern,” Kavits said.
Some residents are concerned that on significantly cold days, students with classes in trailers would have to traverse the school yard with proper protection from the cold.
Thursday morning, with temperatures in the teens, parents took to social media to discuss if their middle school students would be expected to walk to and from class outside without a coat or jacket.
Kavits said the school division received a few phone calls asking about this policy.
To address this concern, one of the associate superintendents wrote a letter to principals encouraging them to allow students to wear outerwear at their administration’s discretion.
“Actually, a number of principals had taken it upon themselves to use that degree of common sense sensibility,” Kavits said.
However, for the school division, the letter was a way of making it more official, so principals would not feel they were allowing their students to break the rules. Now, any concerns parents have about the practice can be addressed at the school level.
Kavits explained that the school division is concerned with students being out in the cold, and one of the reasons it cancelled school on Friday was to protect from the cold students who walk to school.
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