Two-Hour Delay Announcement Scripts
A delay is operationally harder than a closure and gets a fraction of the attention. Closure has one answer. A delay changes every bus stop time, usually cancels morning pre-K, often cancels breakfast service, and leaves athletics and after-school care untouched — four different answers that families have to hold in their heads at 05:20.
| Tier | Normal stop | 2-hour delay | 3-hour delay | Normal school start | Delayed start |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 — high school | 06:20 | 08:20 | 09:20 | 07:25 | 09:25 / 10:25 |
| Tier 1 — high school, late run | 06:45 | 08:45 | 09:45 | 07:25 | 09:25 / 10:25 |
| Tier 2 — middle school | 07:15 | 09:15 | 10:15 | 08:20 | 10:20 / 11:20 |
| Tier 2 — middle school, late run | 07:35 | 09:35 | 10:35 | 08:20 | 10:20 / 11:20 |
| Tier 3 — elementary | 08:05 | 10:05 | 11:05 | 09:05 | 11:05 / 12:05 |
| Tier 3 — elementary, late run | 08:25 | 10:25 | 11:25 | 09:05 | 11:05 / 12:05 |
| AM pre-K | 07:50 | Cancelled | Cancelled | 08:30 | Cancelled |
| Special-education route, door to door | Individual | Call the family | Call the family | Varies | Varies |
Illustrative tier times — substitute your own. The two rows that matter are the last two. AM pre-K is almost always cancelled on a delay because the session no longer fits before the afternoon group arrives, and door-to-door special-education routes cannot be handled by a broadcast at all: those families need a call. A delay message that does not address either produces the two most upset phone calls of the morning.
The core delay script, timed and in three formats
Voice, 61 seconds. This is [NAME] at [DISTRICT]. All [DISTRICT] schools are on a two-hour delay today, [DAY], [DATE], because of [REASON]. Buses will run exactly two hours later than their normal stop time — if your stop is normally at seven fifteen, it will be at nine fifteen today. Morning pre-K is cancelled. Breakfast will not be served. Doors open at [TIME] and no student should arrive before then, as there is no supervision. Afternoon dismissal, after-school activities and athletics are all on the normal schedule. If conditions change we will send another message by [TIME]. Again, a two-hour delay, buses two hours later, no morning pre-K, no breakfast. Thank you.
SMS, 149 characters. [DIST]: 2-HOUR DELAY today [DATE]. Buses run 2 hrs late. No AM pre-K. No breakfast. Doors open [TIME]. PM schedule normal. Details: [URL]
Spanish SMS. [DISTRITO]: RETRASO DE 2 HORAS hoy [FECHA]. Los autobuses pasan 2 horas más tarde. No hay pre-K de la mañana ni desayuno. Puertas abren a las [HORA].
Say "exactly two hours later than their normal stop time" and then give a worked example. Districts write "buses will run two hours late" and a meaningful proportion of families read that as "buses will be two hours behind schedule", which is a different and more alarming statement.
Nine delay variants
- Two-hour delay, everything else normal. The script above.
- Three-hour delay. Same shape, but check whether the elementary tier now collides with lunch service. If it does, say what lunch will be.
- Delay with AM pre-K cancelled. Always call this out by name. "Morning pre-K is cancelled" is four words and it is the most-missed fact in the whole message.
- Delay with no breakfast served. For families relying on school breakfast this is a real consequence, not an operational footnote. If a modified service is available, say where and when.
- Delay affecting only some schools. Name every affected school, and name the unaffected ones too — families with children in two buildings need both halves. This is the variant where the absence of school-level targeting in Kastr matters most, and you should assume a district-wide send.
- Delay with athletics and after-school unaffected. Say so explicitly. Silence is read as cancellation.
- Delay with a modified bell schedule rather than a shifted one. Some districts shorten periods rather than moving the whole day. If yours does, the message must say that dismissal is at the normal time.
- Delay announced the night before. Add one sentence: whether a morning update is coming, and at what time. Without it, families set alarms to check.
- Delay converted to closure. Its own script, below.
The 07:40 message: the delay is now a closure
This is the hardest send of the school year. Some families are already at bus stops, some students are already at the high school, and the district has just been publicly wrong about something safety-related.
Voice, 38 seconds. This is [NAME] at [DISTRICT] with an important change to this morning's message. The two-hour delay has been cancelled and all [DISTRICT] schools are now closed for the day. Buses are not running. If your child is waiting at a bus stop, please bring them home. Students who have already arrived at school are safe and supervised, and you may collect them at any time from the main entrance. Conditions changed after our first decision and we are sorry for the disruption this causes. Again, schools are closed today.
SMS. [DIST]: CHANGE — today's 2-hour delay is now a FULL CLOSURE. Buses are NOT running. Bring children home from stops. Students at school are safe. [PHONE]
Three drafting notes on the apology line. "We are sorry for the disruption this causes" apologises for the impact, which is true and costs nothing. "We made the wrong call" is an admission that will be read back to you at a board meeting and quoted in a claim if anyone was hurt travelling. "Conditions changed after our first decision" is a factual explanation and is the sentence to keep. State the fact, own the impact, do not adjudicate your own judgement in a recorded message drafted in four minutes.
Send this on every channel the original delay message used, plus voice regardless of whether the original used it. This is the one message where reach beats cost without argument.
Fitting a delay into 160 characters
The delay message carries more mandatory facts than any other routine district send: new start time, bus offset, breakfast status, pre-K status, and whether the afternoon is normal. That is five facts, and it does not fit alongside a district identifier and an opt-out footer.
The resolution, in order of preference:
- Drop the doors-open time from the SMS and keep it in the voice call and on the page. Parents who need it are the ones who arrive early, and they are the ones who will click through.
- Use the bus offset instead of the new start time. "Buses run 2 hrs late" is twenty characters and answers the question families actually have. "School starts at 10:25" answers a question only some families have, because start times differ by building.
- Accept two segments deliberately. At 0.4¢ per segment a second segment on a 12,000-family send costs about $48. If the second segment prevents fifty phone calls to the front office, it is the cheapest thing you will buy that morning. The point is to choose it, not to discover it.
Scheduling a night-before delay. Kastr's schedule-later resolves the audience at send time rather than at schedule time, which is the behaviour you want here: a family that enrols at 08:00 on the day of the delay is included in a message scheduled the previous evening. What Kastr will not do is decide for you. There is no weather integration, no automation, and no rule engine that fires a message; the delay message is composed by a person and sent or scheduled by a person.
Questions people actually ask
What has to be included in a two-hour delay message to parents?
Five facts: the new start time or doors-open time, the bus offset stated as an offset with a worked example, whether morning pre-K runs, whether breakfast is served, and whether the afternoon schedule and after-school activities are normal. Districts habitually send the first and omit the other four.
Do buses run exactly two hours later than the normal stop time on a delay?
In most districts yes, and the message should say "exactly two hours later than your normal stop time" and then give an example, because a meaningful share of families read "buses are running two hours late" as a delay against an unchanged schedule. Door-to-door special-education routes are the exception and generally need an individual call rather than a broadcast.
How should a school announce that a delay has become a full closure?
Immediately, voice plus text, on every channel the delay message used, leading with the change. Include an instruction for children already at bus stops and a statement that students already at school are safe and can be collected. Apologise for the disruption, explain that conditions changed, and do not editorialise about the original decision.
Is morning pre-K usually cancelled on a two-hour delay?
Almost always, because a shortened morning session no longer fits before the afternoon group arrives and the staffing does not work. Whatever your district does, name it explicitly in the message — it is the single most frequently missed fact in delay communications and it affects the families least able to absorb a surprise.
Should a delay message be sent the night before or in the morning?
The night before when the decision is genuinely final, at around 20:00, with an explicit statement that no further message is coming. In the morning when conditions are still moving, because a delay announced at 21:00 and reversed at 05:30 costs more trust than it saves sleep.
One price. Every feature. Locked for three years.
$3.50 per student per year under 5,000 students. No tiers, no add-on modules, no per-message fees. Published on the site because you should not have to book a call to learn a price.