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West Seneca Superintendent: We handled things appropriately

Students stranded by weather into early a.m. hours
Posted at 12:27 PM, Jan 06, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-06 12:28:13-05

West Seneca Central School Superintendent Mark Crawford says, given the information they had, the school made the right decisions on Thursday.

Those decisions resulted in kids being stranded on school buses and in schools after a heavy snowstorm laid more than a foot of snow across the area. The heaviest bands of snow fell mid-afternoon, when the students are normally released.

"I'm proud of the way everyone responded," Crawford told 7 Eyewitness News in a phone interview. "Given what we were given, I don't think my staff could have done any better than they did."

Crawford said they were only expecting inches of snow, and admitted that if he knew how bad the snow would become, he would have canceled classes.

But Crawford said, given the way things developed, the schools made the right decision.

"You can't take kids and put them out in a dangerous situation, anyway, and drop them off with no one at home," Crawford said.

"The safest place for children is in school," he continued, "where they're going to be safe and warm."

All the students that were stranded were returned home safely. West Seneca Central canceled classes for Friday.