Dear Monticello Community Member,
This morning (January 30), we were required to close our schools as too many of our diesel-powered buses “gelled” due to the extreme cold. While we use winter blend diesel from our vendor, the frigid temperatures were too great and caused engines to gel.
After five (5) of our buses gelled while on the lot, we sent out delay messages on Parent Square. Three (3) additional buses gelled while on their morning pick-up routes for middle- and high school students. Two of these buses had student passengers when they gelled. At this point, we decided to close schools. Relief buses were sent to the disabled vehicles and students were safely returned home.
Student safety is paramount to us, and we will not continue operations when we believe that safety may be compromised.
We apologized for the late notice and the inconvenience of today’s closure. Our transportation staff is reviewing our maintenance protocols and reexamining the quality of the winter diesel we purchase. If necessary, we will use more additives to prevent gelling on days of extreme cold. We had no gelling issues in our buses during the cold days prior to this morning’s incident.
Our transportation and facilities staff have worked tirelessly this past week to try to ensure our schools and buses are safe and warm for our students and staff. Whether it was clearing snow, monitoring heat, maintaining buses, or repairing frozen lines, they have done their best to keep our schools open. Today’s incident is not a reflection of their hard work, and I sincerely appreciate their efforts.
We now have only one (1) emergency closure day remaining. Should we use this day and have other closures, we will follow the protocols described in our website posting of December 23, 2025. We will send out additional communications if we need to make April 17 and April 6 days of in-person instruction.
We are again sorry for any inconvenience this morning’s late closure may have caused, and we appreciate your patience and understanding.
Should you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to contact me.
Stay warm.
Matthew Evans, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools