Portland-area school officials blame weather-related gridlock for students getting home from school hours late Wednesday.

Some parents in Beaverton had to wait for their kids until 10 p.m. on Wednesday. In Portland, it was even later.

“We had a couple of field trips that arrived back late, and buses transporting students in the hills, which was an especially slow process,” said Portland Public Schools spokeswoman Courtney Westling. “Our last student was dropped home at around midnight.”

Many Portland students had to wait for hours with school staff for parents to pick them up. Westling blamed the snow-related traffic for why some Portland kids arrived home eight hours later than normal.

“We had many challenges getting our students home on time yesterday due in large part to the extreme gridlock occurring around the metro area,” Westling told OPB in an email. “Although there were significant delays, all of our students on buses arrived home safely. Many students were picked up late by their parents/guardians who themselves were stuck in traffic.”

Westling said the problems were regionwide, and the district appreciated the cooperation and patience of parents. Westling didn’t say how many Portland students arrived home late Wednesday, but she acknowledged multiple schools in various parts of the city were stuck for hours.

Beaverton officials made similar points.

John Rosman/OPB

“Every one of these major weather events, Mother Nature throws you a curveball,” said Maureen Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Beaverton School District. “You make a call based on the information you have.”

The slightly smaller suburban district to Portland’s west weathered the storm only slightly better than PPS. Wheeler said the district’s phone system was overwhelmed at times by the volume of parent phone calls. Transportation fared only a little better.

Beaverton relies more heavily on buses than PPS — with more than 22,000 students riding them every day. That means there were relatively few students waiting in buildings for their parents to pick them, but a heavy load for Beaverton’s 300 yellow buses. Wheeler said buses weren’t struggling in the snow – they were simply stuck in snow-related traffic. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Wheeler counted 900 students still waiting to get home.

Rob Manning/OPB

The last Beaverton students to get home were from Vose Elementary School. Vose Elementary is temporarily housed at a new building on the other side of Beaverton, until their old school is rebuilt. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, nearly all Vose students were still at school. The last of them got home around 10 p.m.

North Clackamas and other area schools saw long delays, too.

North Clackamas Superintendent Matt Utterback released a message to parents and staff acknowledging the long travel delays for students.

“Under normal circumstances, transporting over 12,000 students takes over four hours,” Utterback said. “Unfortunately, the snow accumulated much more quickly and roads and traffic became more challenging than anticipated.”

Utterback, and Wheeler in Beaverton, apologized for the inconvenience and announced plans to review their procedures.

“While this particular situation may not have been completely avoided,” Utterback said, “we will review and evaluate our decision-making, communication, and transportation systems to learn how we can improve in the future.”

Wheeler said her district intends to look into the same areas for possible improvement.

Parents have questioned why school districts didn’t release students early Wednesday, as it was clear a storm was approaching. Lake Oswego schools released early, but it was one of the only districts to do so.

Utterback told community members in his message that early dismissals are not easy to do quickly.

“Dismissing students early, with multiple release times, is particularly difficult and requires hours of advance notice,” Utterback said.

Portland and Beaverton officials note that sending kids home early can mean sending them to empty houses, if parents or caregivers aren’t ready for the change.

Beaverton officials also said an early dismissal would not have avoided the weather-related traffic problems.

“The last early release, several years ago, we still wound up with traffic and gridlock,” said Wheeler of Beaverton’s last weather-related early dismissal. “If we had done an hour sooner, at 1:00, we’d still probably be sending kids home late, but maybe 9, instead of 10.”

PPS and Beaverton have announced they’re closed Friday.