Two days after snow blanketed the county, Pike County Schools are remaining closed and Pike Liberal Arts School is delaying its start until 10 a.m. Friday.

Mark Bazzell, PCS superintendent, said he made the call based on icy conditions continuing on many county roads.

“We would have probably opened tomorrow had we not had to transport students to and from schools on county roads,” Bazzell said. “Our facilities are in good shape. But a number of roads in the county are closed or continue to have icy patches that are extremely dangerous. Little Oak Road and Henderson Highway are both problems and we drive 40 buses a day over all those roads and a lot of our kids drive themselves to school on those same roads. So we decided to close out of an abundance of caution.”

Troy City Schools will be open at a normal time Friday after being closed for the last two days. Bazzell said it’s common throughout the state that county school systems remain closed longer than city school systems due to differing road conditions.

“If we were in the same situation with well-traveled roads we probably would have had school tomorrow,” Bazzell said. “But there are areas out in the county with bridges and any area where roads are shaded and didn’t receive enough sunlight today, they just didn’t get enough warming to thaw. We considered a 10 a.m. start time, but we’re just not going to get enough warming of those roads in the morning to resolve the issues that we have.

“We don’t want anybody to get hurt; that’s just not what we need to do.”