The day before LT’s All-School Assembly was poised to take place, NC Associate Principal Kevin Brown went over the intercom Feb. 8 to deliver a message to students: the assembly has been postponed.

The provider of bus services for LT, First Student, notified the school that—due to expected adverse weather—they were unable to guarantee the buses needed to transport the vast number of SC students to NC.

“The all school assembly is one of the biggest events we do all year,” Principal Brian Waterman said. “It is obviously a big student event but it is also a big logistical event. From a logistical perspective there are a lot of moving parts, and by far the biggest moving part is buses.”

Approximately 2200 students and staff have to be transported from SC to NC, Waterman said.

The deliberation over postponing the event began on Wednesday of this week, as the weather forecast showed heavy snow and poor weather, Waterman said. However, it took until Thursday afternoon to make the final decision.

“We needed a clear picture on the confidence level that our bus company—First Student—has in providing us the number of buses we needed,” Waterman said. “We just weren’t able to be confident that we can safely have the number of buses needed to transport all the students we need to transport.”

The issue lies in how the weather conditions could potentially delay ordinary bus routes, meaning buses that would be needed for the assembly wouldn’t be able to be there on time, Waterman said. On top of that, some drivers may need to call in due to difficulty getting to work.

“Because of the forecasted weather, I think it boiled down to transportation because I think we realized that there could be some difficulty with driving and managing the road tomorrow morning,” LT community relations director Jennifer Bialobok said. “In what could be a tricky drive, we just didn’t see the wisdom of going through with this assembly.”

Even after posting on the school website that they “anticipate” school would go on as normal Friday, the LT administrators announced Thursday evening that classes would be canceled as a result of the projected weather conditions. Instead of having school off President’s Day, that will be made an attendance day as a result of the cancellation.

In regard to the assembly, no further information has been made available about when the assembly will be rescheduled. In Brown’s announcement, students were told the make-up date should be provided on Feb. 13. The new date will determine when make-up rehearsals will be scheduled.

While some speculated that there could be no assembly this year, the administration was quite sure that would not be the case. Waterman said he is “confident” that there will be an all-school assembly within in the next two weeks.

“There’s always a potential [of cancellation,] but we’re going to have an All School,” Waterman said “It’s just a matter of what day works.”

The overall performance will not be drastically impacted, NC Vice President Pilar Valdes said. Student Council is currently trying to reschedule all outside acts.

“The assembly being postponed only allows us to have more time to make it the best assembly LT has seen in a long time,” Valdes said. “We have been planning this show for a long time and this is really only an opportunity to make it better.”