Orange County Public Schools will remain open on Tuesday, August 29, with school officials saying they will make an announcement on a possible closure during the day as they monitor Hurricane Idalia.
According to a statement issued by OCPS on Monday evening, schools will be open on Tuesday with all after-school activities continuing through 8 p.m.
School officials say they will decide on a cancellation of school for Wednesday after receiving an update on the storm’s status through the National Weather service.
“As a reminder, the primary decision point for any potential closure is if sustained winds exceed 35 mph. That is the threshold for buses to operate safely on the roads,” reads the statement.
As of 5 a.m., the storm has become Hurricane Idalia and is currently maintaining maximum sustained wind speeds at 75 mph.
The National Hurricane Center says that the storm is expected to “rapidly intensify into an extremely dangerous major hurricane before landfall on Wednesday.”
“We strongly encourage OCPS families and employees to continue to prepare for possible impacts from the storm. We will continue to communicate updates to our families and employees through phone calls, emails and text messages, as well as posts to OCPS social media pages, and on ocps.net,” says the school district.