By Bill Bush and Shannon Gilchrist, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – Columbus City Schools will dismiss early again on Tuesday because of extreme heat and a lack of air conditioning in dozens of school buildings, district administrators announced on Monday afternoon.
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High-school and middle-school students again will be dismissed at noon, and elementary students at 1 p.m.
Unlike on Monday, however, high school sports and other extracurricular activities will take place on Tuesday afternoon as scheduled, said district spokesman Scott Varner. Middle-school sports and activities will be canceled on Tuesday, he said.
Columbus schools Superintendent Dan Good has a standby joke he drops when addressing groups of students: “By the way, I’m the guy who gets to decide whether to close school on snow days.”
On Monday, Good decided to close schools based on heat, not cold and nobody at the district could point to another time when that had happened.
Columbus City Schools sent students home early Monday citing a potential heatwave. The high Monday hit 91 degrees at John Glenn Columbus International Airport at 3:39 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The high Tuesday is predicted to be about 90 and Wednesday’s temperatures should top out in the mid 80s, before temperatures cool into the 70s Thursday.