Brrr! North Enders have endured some really, really cold temperatures this week. On Monday morning, we awoke to our neck of the woods doing its best impression of a frozen tundra. We bundled up, huddled up and, much to school children’s delight, school was cancelled.

Every time a snow day is declared, there’s a part of the North End that lucks out and doesn’t get slammed with snow like the rest of the area. Unsuspecting parents get out of bed, look out the window and see a light dusting of snow. So they get up and start making preparations to send their child (or children) to school for the day. Children — being children — look out the window, see a light dusting of snow and cross their fingers. They run to the computer and/or television and check to see if there is, in fact, no school that particular day.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Snow days, it seems, are a bit controversial.

Whenever the North Kitsap School District declares a snow day, there are always a group of parents left scratching their heads. When they got up and looked out the window, the weather didn’t seem so severe. “What’s going on?” they wonder.

Well, it’s simple.

The two men in charge of declaring a snow day — Ron Lee, district transportation director, and district superintendent Gene Medina — don’t have the luxury of checking the weather from their windows.

They have to go out in the elements. At 4:15 a.m.

They drive all around the North End, getting an up-close and personal look at the roads. At 4:15 a.m.

They have to consider whether or not the roads are safe to travel, not just by car, but by school bus. At, you guessed, it, 4:15 a.m.

Ron Lee’s

the NKSD transportation director