They generally don't close the schools here. Ever. We had about 14 inches of snow overnight a couple of weeks ago. The kids went to school. The morning temperatures have been below zero F every day this past week save one (when it was a balmy 3 F). The kids went to school. This morning it was -12 F. The kids went to school.
Poor little stinkers, lol. They never get a day off.
The SUNY colleges shut down if there are rumors of snow: Governor Cuomo has a crippling phobia of snowflakes. The urban school districts shut down if more than a few inches of snow are predicted. The usual excuse is safety, but I think it has more to do with teachers and staff enjoying a snow day just as much as the kids do.
New York City used to be an exception. Under Giuliani and Bloomberg, the schools almost never closed. Their thinking was that a lot of parents worked and might not be able to arrange childcare on short notice, and a lot of students' families were poor and counted on the kids being fed in school (all NYC schools serve lunch and many serve breakfast). So their position was that if you thought it was too cold / dangerous to send your kids to school, then you could keep them home. But if you needed a warm, safe place where your kids would be warm, fed, and supervised, the schools were open. They would usually spend the days singing songs and playing games because half the teachers wouldn't show up, but it was better than being left unsupervised and unfed.
I don't know what the policy in The City is now, but I suspect that that hand-wringing ninny de Blasio probably closes the schools if a snowflake is rumored to be fluttering to the ground somewhere over Jersey or Connecticut. He and Cuomo have repeatedly made fools of themselves this winter by overreacting to predicted snowstorms that never happened or didn't live up to their expectations.
Rich