All Anchorage schools except O’Malley Elementary will be open Thursday, but bus service will be limited

Update 8 a.m. Thursday:

The Anchorage School District has added six additional bus routes to the “no service” list due to poor road conditions. They are routes 413, 414, 503, 509, 521 and 522.

Update 5:40 a.m. Thursday:

The Anchorage School District has announced that all schools but one will be open Thursday. O’Malley Elementary School on the Upper Hillside will have a remote learning day due to unsafe road conditions.

Bus service will be limited; several dozen routes have been canceled for the day. Buses that are running may be late to stops, the district warned.

Families that aren’t able to get their students to school safely should notify their respective schools, the district said, and those absences will be excused.

A decision about after-school activities and community rentals will be made by noon.

Wednesday story:

The Anchorage School District said Wednesday it is “on track” to welcome students back to school buildings for in-person learning on Thursday after several days of remote learning amid back-to-back snowstorms and challenging road conditions throughout the city.

The district said in a Wednesday evening statement that transportation teams would be out completing road checks “because we are on track to be back in school tomorrow.”

“We are making every effort possible to get all students and staff members safely to school,” the statement read.

District officials had previously said schools would not reopen until most residential streets were cleared of snow, and they have cited dangerous road conditions in the decision to transition to remote learning days four times since Anchorage was hit with a series of heavy snowfalls starting last week.

In its statement, the district warned that it may not operate some bus routes on Thursday due to challenging neighborhood road conditions, saying its buses “simply can’t operate as safely as smaller vehicles” in poor conditions. The district will update families Thursday morning on whether certain routes are affected, it said.

The school district also said bus delays will be likely, and that students should prepare for longer-than-normal wait times at bus stops.

Families that aren’t able to get their students to school safely should notify their respective schools, the district said, and those absences will be excused.

The district will update families on the situation as early as 5:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the statement.