CPS cancels 2nd day of classes due to extreme cold

Chicago Public Schools canceled classes for Thursday, the second day school will be out for hundreds of thousands of students as a historic cold spell grips the city.

The decision comes a day after the district canceled school on Wednesday.

While there’s never a good time for double-digit sub-zero temperatures, the cold snap landed at an especially inconvenient time for CPS teachers and students — the end of the academic quarter.

With classes canceled, many high schools have been forced to adjust final exam schedules that will delay report cards.

The end of the second quarter was originally scheduled for Thursday, with students off Friday as teachers were set to enter grades during a professional development day. Report card distribution was initially slotted to begin on Feb. 8.

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For schools like Whitney Young Magnet High School in the West Loop and Jones College Prep downtown, that means final exams — which are spread out over three days — won’t be completed until Tuesday. Report cards could be pushed back up to a week.

Pending approval by the Chicago Board of Education, two makeup days will be tacked onto the end of the year, making the last day June 20.

The Chicago Teachers Union kept a running tab on Tuesday of complaints from teachers saying sidewalks and parking lots at dozens of schools had not been cleared, and claimed heating issues forced a first-grade class at Burke Elementary on the South Side to wear their coats during class.

CPS officials did not immediately say if any major heating issues had been reported across the district.

The city could hit its lowest temperature on record at minus 27 degrees by early Wednesday, with windchill values plunging even lower.