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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- It started out with a two-hour delay, and then officials in the Ottumwa School District felt it would be safer to cancel classes for the remainder of Friday.

A number of the secondary, gravel roads had iced over during the night.

KTVO spoke with Jerry Kjer, the General Manager of Southern Iowa Transit. He was up at 3 AM on Friday morning to check the roads and consult with the school district, stating that student safety is a top priority.

"And with that temperature range of about 32 degrees, we had some freezing occurring and it just made roads very slippery. So it was just at about 7:30 that we decided the safest thing for us to do in Ottumwa [Friday] was to cancel the school day," Kjer said.

About 1.5 percent of the 2,200 students that utilize the school bus in the Ottumwa district are picked up on gravel roads. On Friday, officials had to issue the "Hard Surface Roads Only Procedure."

"And that allows us to run buses only on those roads that we know the county can get out and spread sand or salt on, to help improve traction so that we have more assured safety," Kjer said.

In total, the Ottumwa School District has had seven days off due to the winter weather, more than double the average per year for the last six years.

"It's a lot of responsibility and sometimes as you sit in the driver's seat and you glance up in that mirror and you see 38 youngsters sitting behind you, it is a real sobering realization that how I perform as a bus driver can make the difference to the lives of a lot of families in our area, so safety is something that we always keep in mind," Kjer said.