ANDERSON COUNTY, Tenn — Several East Tennessee schools canceled class for a second day Wednesday.
Knox County Schools opened late.
Anderson County Schools opened on time, like normal, and leaders said it simply wasn't cold enough.
Anderson County missed Tuesday's small bought of snow, so Director of Schools Dr. Tim Parrott said it came down to temperature and windchill.
"They were predicting between 16 and 22 degrees, and with a windchill factor of 12 to 15 degrees, so we felt at that time it was going to be OK to have school," Parrott said.
On Tuesday, Dr. Parrott posted the announcement to social media, and it got a fair amount of support and a lot of criticism.
He later tweeted he had to delete his last tweet because of "some very inappropriate comments."
"Some of them had some pictures of guns and some had just some very inappropriate language in them," Parrott said.
Parrott said police are looking at the tweets of the guns.
Dr. Parrott said he showed police the tweets.
Anderson County has about 6,300 students and 40-50 buses.
Dr. Parrott says those buses generally run on time and go from house to house, so students aren't walking long distances. He also said about half the students take the bus, and parents drive the other half.
He said they don't do late arrivals because there's too much room for error.
Still, safety of the students is his number one priority.
"I believe that for a lot of students they were a lot safer at school than at home because parents still have to work," Parrott said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says hypothermia can happen more quickly in kids than adults.
The Academy says the rule of thumb is to dress kids in one more layer of clothing than an adult would wear in the same conditions.
In Knox County, the school system's transportation director Ryan Dillingham said they always try to make a decision that works best for most students and faculty.
Dillingham said they use a variety of tools to make the call on days where roads can be slick and temperatures are bottoming out -- including forecasts from the National Weather Service.
The transportation office also sends crews to drive around to test the roads and talks to people who know the area well to make a decision if the roads are too treacherous.
"We also have contractors with long experience. They live there, grew up there and drove buses there for 30 years. We get their input and see what it will be like driving a multi-ton bus with kids on board on these roads in these conditions," he said.
On Wednesday, Dillingham said most of the issues with roads occurred in South Knox County, but that will change depending on how weather pans out. He said the county relies on school bus drivers to make an informed observation.
"When we make a call, we know they are ultimately the people on scene. We are comfortable with putting them in a place where they can say this is safe, this isn't... We want our kids to be in school, but we don't want to put them in danger to be there," he said.
On Wednesday, roughly 8 roads in the county were reported to be impassable for bus drivers. In those cases, drivers did not pick up students on those roads and parents received a message telling them they were responsible for getting their students to school.