The spokesman of the Baltimore County Public School district stated that all Baltimore County Public Schools will be closing 2 hours early today due to extreme heat. The temperature is expected to reach 93-94 degrees, thus leaving the school district with the tough decision to shorten the school day. All afternoon pre-K classes will be closed for the day, and afternoon activities will be on a case to case basis.

Many of the schools are not fully air conditioned in the county. Only about 125 of the 173 schools are. Herdon states, “We have a number of our schools that are not air conditioned; in the classrooms particularly. The combination of both the heat and the humidity made for a rather distractingly uncomfortable conditions in some of the classrooms.”

The shortening of a school day is a logistics nightmare. The Baltimore County schools have some 70,000 students who ride an estimated 800 buses home. Parents however were alerted earlier this morning about the shortening of the day. Temperatures are expected to also be very hot tomorrow, and finally cool down in the area by Friday.