CLASSROOM HEAT LEADS TO EARLY DISMISSAL TODAY

Students at four Cape Girardeau schools will be dismissed early today because of heat concerns.

District superintendent Dan Steska said Louis J. Schultz School will dismiss at 11:15 a.m., and the Cape Central junior and senior high schools, as well as the Alternative Education Center, will dismiss at 11:30 a.m.

Students at three of the schools were dismissed early Wednesday as the heat index in some classrooms was expected to reach 100 degrees.

Neither the junior and senior high schools nor Schultz have air conditioned classrooms, and Steska said he decided at 9:30 Wednesday morning to let those students out early.

"We had an unexpected increase in the humidity, so that impacted the heat index," Steska said. "We could tell this morning it was going to be miserable."

Students at the elementary schools were not dismissed early because those rooms are air conditioned.

The district's early dismissal policy allows Steska to determine by 8 p.m. the night before if the heat index will be high enough for schools to dismiss early the next day. His decision is based on local and National Weather Service predictions.

Steska said he checked the weather reports Tuesday evening and, at the time, forecasters were not predicting Wednesday's hot, humid weather.

"Even though I really preferred not to make that last-minute decision, once we had that unexpected rise in humidity, we thought it was in the best interest of the students and staff to go ahead," he said.

School officials said early dismissals will be announced on KFVS-TV and the radio stations KGMO, KWKZ and KXIM.

Students at Jackson and Scott City schools, which are fully air conditioned, were not dismissed early.