First, let us dispel some conclusions to which Lincoln Public Schools’ 32,000 students might have jumped Monday night as the freezing rain fell.

LPS officials did not wait until morning to call a snow day because they wanted to make sure homework was done.

They did not wait because they wanted to try out their new electronic notification system, alerting families with a ringing phone at an ungodly hour, just for the fun of it.

Or because they wanted to drive students to near distraction Monday night as the names of schools with the word “closed” crawled across the bottom of TV sets — with LPS strikingly, confoundedly, unbelievably missing.

They waited, said LPS Associate Superintendent for Business Affairs Dennis Van Horn, so they could base their decision on conditions, not forecasts.

In this case, that was 4:15 a.m., when side streets were icy and sidewalks nearly impassable.

Shortly thereafter, Van Horn, who spent the night driving around, watching the forecasts, calling the National Weather Service and city maintenance crews, called Superintendent Susan Gourley and offered his best recommendation: Close the schools.

Then, the calls went out, sending a message to every LPS family.

“I had just returned from driving the streets and had parked my pickup in the driveway and it was sitting there, starting to slide down the driveway,” said Van Horn, head condition-checker for LPS.

Arterial streets, he said, were passable, but getting to them was difficult, and the Weather Service was forecasting more ice.

School districts that made the decision Monday evening must have based it on forecasts, he said.

LPS likes to wait.

It’s always a tough call, Van Horn said. They’d rather have kids in school, where it’s warm and breakfast and lunch are available.

And really kids, didn’t the anticipation make the news that much more sweet? Plus, your homework was done.

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.