It came and went and nothing. The time, 3 p.m., inched closer on the clock and students in the Selma City School System prepared to make their daily dash to buses and waiting cars to head home.

Hours earlier, their counterparts in the Dallas County School System and at each of the area academies, were dismissed early to head home or to any place other than school.

The leaders of those school systems and schools had made the decision based on weather forecasts that called for severe weather to hit the Dallas County area around 2 p.m. Wednesday.

It didn’t happen, and now the comments will begin about did the students have to be let out early.

What information were they looking at? I had to leave work to go pick up my child, and for what?

Just because the weather that was predicted to hit the area did not materialize, in no way did it lessen the responsibility of school leaders to consider the health and safety of their students.

Each superintendent and each headmaster had to make a decision based on the best information available and how loud would have the screams been if the students had not been dismissed earlier and — God forbid — a child was hurt either at a school or on a bus headed down the highway.

Understanding weather is, at times, an inexact science, school leaders and emergency management officials have to do the best with the information provided and Wednesday they did.

By waiting until afternoon the school day will not have to be made up and, if the worst thing that happened because of the decisions to dismiss early was that a parent was inconvenienced, then that’s quite alright.