School Closings: How to Know If It's a Snow Day in New York City

[UPDATED: February 7, 2013] School are open today, Friday, February 8, but Winter Storm Nemo is on its way. While NYC public schools rarely close, private schools and nursery schools close much more often. It's important to be able to find out if your child's school will be open before you head out the door (calling may not work since no one may be there!) Here are the best resources I've found for finding out if New York City schools are closing:

The NYC DOE now has a great messaging system that can notify you of important news concerning schools. You can also contact 311 for up-to-date information, sign up for school alerts at NotifyNYC, subscribe to breaking news alerts and featured updates, and follow the DOE on Facebook and Twitter.

Visit the NYC DOE website for the latest weather-related scheduling changes.

[Note: in my experience NotifyNYC is a great service for alternate side of the street parking suspensions and other citywide alerts, but in the past it has not alerted me about school closings. Subscribing to the DOE always works though. Last time I got an email alert before I woke up. Worked great.]

1010WINS.com has a desktop app that will pop up a box when your school closes. Of course it seems like by the time that ever came up, my kids had already changed schools and I had forgotten to update the app. It's almost as easy just to go to the 1010WINS site.

Radio Station WCBS AM 880 has a service that will alert you by email or text message if your school is closing. It took me a little bit to figure out how to sign up and I may not ever find out if it works, but you can sign up for the alerts here.

NY1 also tends to be on the ball about school closings, and usually has a ticker at the bottom of the screen listing schools that are closed.

And of course since many schools now have their own websites and social media sites, it's a good idea to go directly to the source.

If it does turn out to be a snow day, check out our post with ideas for things to do on a snow day and the best places to go sledding in NYC.