This has been fun to read and got my curiosity up. I teach High school and they wear shorts if it is above 0F

I contacted a cycling buddy who is an elementary school principal in this district to find out the "official" policy

His response was:

Our policy is that we stay inside when:

Air temp = negative 5 degrees (F)
or
Wind chill = negative 15 degrees (F)


There's an old Scandanavian saying that goes, "There's no such things as bad weather, just bad clothing."
The clothing available nowadays is quite good and if children are prepared, it's very easy to stay warm no matter the temp.

We do have programs for boots, hats, mitts, coats etc.

In all my teaching career, (26 years) school was only canceled 1x, and that was by the Governor, he canceled the entire state - wind chills were -70 to -80 F, a cup of hot coffee thrown into the air froze before hitting the ground.

So what did the kids do? They went to the mall.
It got that cold last year - We had school

But to err on safety sake parents can opt out and keep their kids at home. We have a major air force base in our district and some parents do keep their kids home if it drops to -20F. We natives just don't get why they would do that