The latest local news, weather and high school sports in and around Columbia and Jefferson City

The snow and ice caught some mid-Missourians off guard Tuesday, leaving schools open and many parents worried since thousands of children took the bus to school.

While the roads were icy, and caused delays, not to mention a couple hundred accidents, no schools in mid-Missouri were canceled.

Columbia's snowfall total was about an inch and a half.

The Columbia Public School District buses ran 212 routes Tuesday morning, transporting more than 8,000 students.

During the routes there were nine minor collisions, and one child was sent to the hospital as a precaution.

Many said with the roads being so dangerous, school should have been called off.

"There probably were some other decisions that we could have made, those weren't made but we made the best with what we had and our primary goal was to make sure that we got students to school safely,” Columbia Public School District spokesperson Michelle Baumstark said. “It's one of those situations where hindsight is always going to be 20/20 and you can look back on something and say maybe we should have done this or that. But that isn't what happened and we did the best with what we had."

Baumstark said officials at the Columbia School District were caught off guard by the snowfall and said if they would have known about the timing and amount they might have had a late start, used snow routes or some kind of other alternative.

While Columbia saw a fair amount of the white stuff, Jefferson City only got about half-an-inch.

David Luther, the spokesperson for Jefferson City Public School District said their buses had no problems on the roads.

"The roads weren't fine but our bus drivers did a great job, we didn't have any trouble we just had delays," Luther said. "The only concerns that we had, there were some roads that hadn't been salted yet, however, ya know, I think the county and city did a great job."

Luther said officials with the school district never talked about canceling the school day since their buses were already on the road by the time the heaviest snow was falling.