Making the call on snow days

AP ^ | Monday, February 9, 2004

[presidio9]

Eight years ago, in the middle of the night, John Yagielski watched his car burn outside his home and decided then and there to end his 30-year career in education.

No one was ever arrested, but police believe the fire was set because school superintendent Yagielski had extended the school day by 40 minutes for a few weeks to make up for a snow day.

[Triple Word Score]

'OK. What would you rather do? Go an extra day of school in June or go to a funeral in February?"'

That says it all.

[presidio9]

This is symptomatic of the society of victims. The only people responsible for making the determiniation that the snow is too deep for Junior are Mom and Dad. Period.

[Keith in Iowa]

My solution: Take winter off instead of summer, or year 'round school and half days on the worst ones in winter.

[Arkinsaw]

The only people responsible for making the determiniation that the snow is too deep for Junior are Mom and Dad. Period.

They freely admit that a major influencer of their decision is funding. Isn't that a hell of a note? They can freely admit that their funding has a major influence on "safety" decisions.

[Triple Word Score]

Well, that'd be fine if Junior didn't face disciplinary action for his parents deciding it's too slick.

School districts are funded based on attendance. That's the math of it. Some schools have such harsh attendance policies that you'll have kids attending who ought to be in the hospital.

[Grammy]

Do what they do here in Nashville. When it snows TOWN shuts down, not just school.

[Triple Word Score]

Also should add, at least around here, the kids whose parents have them in public school don't seem to enjoy a lot of responsible decision making on the home front.

We had one heck of an ice storm a couple of years ago. Everything was slick as snot. Of course schools were closed. But that didn't stop parents from dropping their kids off at an obviously closed school and leaving them there. If the janitor hadn't made it in to check the pipes, there would have been no adult there at all to handle the couple of dozen "ice orphans" whose parents were too stupid to turn on the radio.

[ccmay]

They freely admit that a major influencer of their decision is funding.

I daresay that funding is their ONLY consideration. Why else would teacher's union slugs not be happy to take another day off?

-ccm

[presidio9]

School districts are funded based on attendance. That's the math of it. Some schools have such harsh attendance policies that you'll have kids attending who ought to be in the hospital.

That gets us right back to our litigious society. If a school ever tried to punish Junior because Mommy said it was too cold for him, hello lawsuit.

[babble-on]

exactly. in Nashville, it doesn't even have to snow. Sometimes just a forecast of snow, or even if someone is thinking really hard about igloos for some reason its enough for everything to shut down, plus there will be a line at the supermarket provisioning for the duration.

[Wright is right!]

"Do what they do here in Nashville. When it snows TOWN shuts down, not just school."

And everyone buys bread and milk, even those people who don't drink milk nor eat bread. It's the "storm" thing to do.

This year, they've closed skrewls twice and no snow showed up. They're gun-shy from last winter when an unexpected blizzard appeared mid-morning and dropped 8 inches in about 3 hours. It was a totally surreal mess for the natives here in Music City.

The philosophy is that if even one skrewl bus cannot make its route in complete and and utter safety, then NO one goes. There are some places out in the hills NW of town that can ice up easily and the rest of the area is clear and dry - and they'll shut down the skrewls because of it.

As for attendance - one of the days they shut down this year was AFTER the attendance cutoff, so even though everyone went home at 10:30, it still counted as a skrewl day. We've only used one snow day so far - five are built into the calendar.

Michael

[coder2]

Up here in Minne-sooo-teee, the superintendent brags because he doesn't close school when there are 15" of new snow. They say they won't penalize kids who don't make it in to school, but they make it difficult to make up the lost time, they just say "find someone who was in that day".

Living out in the country has many many pluses, but tons of snow with school considerations is not fun.

I'm waiting (not hoping), but waiting for someone to get killed on the roads because they decided to keep school open (and brag about it).

[RightWhale]

The only people responsible for making the determiniation that the snow is too deep for Junior are Mom and Dad.

What about the school buses?

[ryanjb2]

"Do what they do here in Nashville. When it snows TOWN shuts down, not just school."

Southerners are hilarious. One or two little inches of snow and everything shuts down, not to mention people refuse to slow down on the roads.

Up here in the lake affect snow areas, 12 inches + of snow a day doesn't stop us from anything.

[stands2reason]

Up here in the lake affect snow areas, 12 inches + of snow a day doesn't stop us from anything.

No snowplows?

[zoso82t]

In Maryland, where I went to school up until college, they cancelled school a lot, whenever it was over 2" of snow or there was a threat of snow. Sometimes, it just rained and we ended up with no school because they cancelled it the night before. I guess the schools are just deathly afraid some kid is going to slip and fall walking to school and they get hit with a million dollar lawsuit by the parents.

[doodad]

Yes, but do you have any sand, salt, deicers, snow tires, chains, ice scrapers, and plows? They don't down here. The city and county don't either. Not worth the money. Easier to stay home, hope an ice storm doesn't occur, and make hot toddies on the off year that it happens. And worse, it doesn't really snow down here it ices which is much worse with our hills. BTW, I ain't from here, LOL.

[ShadowDancer]

This is symptomatic of the society of victims. The only people responsible for making the determiniation that the snow is too deep for Junior are Mom and Dad. Period.

Teachers traveling a far distance in nasty weather are factored in, too.

[presidio9]

See that's what I'm talking about. If you, as a parent, look out the window and think "I don't like the looks of that," keep Junior home. If something were to happen, all the money in the world isn't going to bring Junior back anyway.