The York Catholic District School Board, which runs elementary and secondary schools in Markham, apologized to families on Thursday, Jan. 15, after most parents did not get timely word that every school in the board was closing because of heavy snow.

In a letter posted on the board's website that day, interim director of education Jennifer Sarna said the board did not meet its usual standard of keeping parents and guardians informed, and explained what went wrong.

How the morning unfolded

The first decision of the day was to cancel buses, the board said. An email announcing that went out at 5:47 a.m. through the third-party service the board uses to reach families.

As heavy snow continued to fall, and after consulting neighbouring school boards, the board decided to close its schools. A second email announcing the closure was sent at 6:12 a.m. The board's alert said child care in its schools would also be closed and asked parents not to bring children to school, because no staff would be on site to look after them.

That second message is where the problem arose. The board said its email provider was overwhelmed by high traffic, and an hour later only 20 per cent of families had received it.

Board staff were in contact with the provider throughout the outage, the letter said. In the meantime, the closure was posted on social media and school websites, shared with news outlets and sent to families by phone message. The board acknowledged, however, that many families rely on email.

I know that this situation caused confusion and stress for many families, and for that, I am very sorry. We will do everything we can to ensure it does not happen again.

— Jennifer Sarna, interim director of education, York Catholic District School Board

The board said it would tell its email provider that the day's technical problems were unacceptable and must be addressed.

A storm-day test for new systems

The closure came as the City of Markham declared a significant weather event following an orange-level snowfall warning from Environment Canada, and urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel.

The storm also arrived as Student Transportation Services of York Region pilots a new approach to bad-weather days. Since Jan. 5, buses and taxis can be cancelled across the whole region or in just one of two service areas; Markham is in the South Service Area. On Jan. 15, the Catholic board went further than cancelling buses and closed its schools to students entirely.

For Markham parents, the episode is a reminder to check more than one channel on stormy mornings. By the board's own account, the closure notice was on its website and social media while many families were still waiting for an email.