All St. John's metro area schools to reopen Tuesday

All schools in St. John's and surrounding municipalities will open Tuesday.

The Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (NLESD) had opted for a phased-in return to school for Monday, in order to limit traffic.

Only high school students headed back to class Monday. Memorial University was also back in session.

The NLESD said the decision to reopen all K-12 schools for Tuesday with made in consultation with area municipalities.

The district says some of the adjustments to some bus routes will remain in effect until Friday. Other routes that had been changed are back to normal, and the district is urging people to check its website for the details.

"There are still some bus routes that have to be adjusted because we can't be assured of getting down all of the side streets. So those modifications are posted online," said Tony Stack, the school districts CEO and director of education.

Stack added that all schools outside of St. John's are operating as normal.

Another indicator that things are slowly returning back to pre-state of emergency status, the provincial government will begin to close its emergency operations centre as of Tuesday.

The province said the emergency phone number, (709) 729-3709 will no longer take calls for assistance related to the Jan. 17 blizzard, but will continue to be used for after hours assistance for emergency management organizations..

The temporary Canadian Red Cross emergency phone line will also cease on Tuesday.

'We did need to get back to school'

Students who headed back to class Monday traversed streets and sidewalks still clogged with snow, and slippery and in some places, non-existent sidewalks.

"We had indications from the outside municipalities, outside of St. John's proper, greater St. John's, that clearances of routes were such that we could operate buses normally," Stack said.

"Within the city we had a conversation with city staff and they indicated that the clearance in and around schools, in the walk areas in and around schools, were at a level of standard winter conditions."

Holy Heart High School principal Sheldon Barry said he'd been keeping an eye on traffic outside and it appeared most incoming students were adhering to the "slow and safe" precautions espoused by officials since travel restrictions were lifted.

Holy Heart student Alice Ferguson-O'Brien agreed with the phased approach, saying it was a hard decision to send students back given the state of the sidewalks, but it needed to happen due to encroaching exams.

"We don't have an endless amount of time," she said. "We did need to get back to school."

Memorial University students were also out in full force as all campuses opened Monday morning.

Zaiaf Vinferoze, who moved from Bangladesh about six months ago, said the storm was a tough experience given his home country's balmy winters.

"I've never seen snow in my life," Vinferoze said, smiling. "But it was a good experience. I love the shovelling."

Vinferoze and fellow student Katherine Flynn said getting to campus, though, was a little unnerving, with sidewalks slippery or non-existent and giant snowbanks blocking the line of sight around corners.

"Trying to see if there's people there and cars, that's difficult," Flynn said.

The university made some changes to its calendar for the rest of the semester, salvaging the week-long break by shortening the study period between final classes and exams and pushing back the exam period by three days.

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