SchoolSentry
An app for K–12 parents in central North Carolina that combines school district closures, severe-weather timing, and bus-route changes into one morning-of decision feed with a 60-second answer to 'is school on or off?'
parents of K–12 students in Wake, Durham, and Johnston counties who lose mornings to weather uncertainty
- Pulls every district in your route plus WRAL and NWS feeds; predicts a 7am answer the night before with a confidence badge
- Bus-route mode: shows your specific stop's historical late-arrival rate by weather type so you know whether to leave at 6:50 or 7:10
- Carline alert when a Level 2+ risk coincides with afternoon pickup — push 45 minutes early so you're not in a metal lot under a warning
- After-action recap: 'school closed this morning because of what actually happened,' archived per district per day
WRAL's severe-risk coverage this July lands on the exact demographic that loses the most sleep to school-day weather decisions — and there is no app that fuses SPC, district, and bus data into one answer.
WRAL operates a dedicated central-NC closings page (wral.com/29) and a free severe-weather app with push alerts, and third-party trackers like schools-closings.com and Snow Day Calculator maintain active Wake County / national listings — clear, recurring parent demand.WRAL Weather Closings & Delays | Search schools, businesses, government ↗Wake County School Closings Today | Live WCPSS Status ↗
WRAL.com/29 aggregates closings but is a web list, not a fused morning-decision feed; Snow Day Calculator only predicts probability; nothing tightly fuses SPC outlook + district decision + bus route changes for Wake/Durham/Johnston.Snow Day Calculator - Apps on Google Play ↗
CARROT Weather proves weather subscriptions work (auto-renewing Premium), but Snow Day Calculator is free, WRAL's closings/weather service is free ad-supported, and schools-closings.com is free — willingness to pay for a 3-county niche app is unproven.CARROT Weather Subscriptions FAQ ↗Snow Day Calculator — How to Use It ↗
Hurricane/severe-weather season and winter events recur annually in central NC, and WCPSS / Durham / Johnston districts are stable institutions, but the app's value is concentrated on a handful of bad-weather days per year.Home - Wake County Public School System ↗WRAL weather app | The latest NC weather on your phone ↗
SPC outlooks, NWS alerts, and district announcements are publicly accessible; the 60-second 'on or off' answer is technically straightforward, but bus GPS routing requires a partnership (e.g., BusPlanner/Here Comes the Bus) or scraping across three districts.PDF BUSPLANNER DELAYS - stwdSTS ↗