Winter weather in Nebraska is very unpredictable and can vary from windy and below freezing, to sunny but snowing.
Most students in high school do not use their parent or guardian as transportation to get them to school. Since the majority of high schoolers are of the age 15 and older, it is legal for them to have a school permit or even their license to get them to school.
For the most part, young adults have their own car that was either passed on to them, or bought used, so they are usually older models
With this in consideration, older cars do not have all the fancy features as newer cars and tend to have more inconvenient issues.
“I have a remote start for my car, but it turns off after five minutes so usually by the time I get outside it turned off because I forgot,” sophomore Madolyn Jackson said. “It’s not really that helpful for me.”
Jackson recently got her license and started driving herself to school, and additionally parks her car outside at her house, like many other students who do not get the privilege of a garage spot.
Jackson also lives about 20 minutes away from school but luckily, she has not had to scrape ice off her windshield yet.
For senior Aleyah O’Dell though, it is a different story.
“I live about five minutes away from the school and I’ve been late way too many times,” O’Dell said. “Since I don’t have an automatic start for my car, scraping the ice takes up a lot of time for me to get to school on time.”
O’Dell has been dealing with this problem longer than Jackson has and still struggles to make it to school on time.
But even then, it is hard for people to predict the weather and give themselves enough time to make adjustments.
“I actually park my car outside rather than the garage,” teacher Nick Thompson said.
“I don’t have to worry about the frost on my windshield because I have an automatic start.”
Although Thompson has an automatic start today, he said when he attended high school he was often late to class due to the unpredictable weather.
During the winter time in Nebraska, there are many variables included in a student being late including their car not starting, ice on windows, and even just not being able to drive because the steering wheel is too cold.
Knowing this, some teachers are understanding of the struggles high school students endure to make it to school on time on a daily basis.
“I have had student’s make the excuse of being late because of car troubles before,” Thompson said. “I let it slide usually unless it’s a recurring thing, but if it’s super cold or it happens once or twice, I let it go and don’t give them a late marking.”