Posted on 01/23/2008 6:51:55 AM PST by wintertime
Snow days, kids and school officials have always been a delicate mix.
But a phone call to a Fairfax County public school administrator's home last week about a snow day -- or lack of one -- has taken on a life of its own.
(snip)
It started with Thursday's snowfall, estimated at about three inches near Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke. On his lunch break, Lake Braddock senior Devraj "Dave" S. Kori, 17, used a listed home phone number to call Dean Tistadt, chief operating officer for the county system, to ask why he had not closed the schools. Kori left his name and phone number and got a message later in the day from Tistadt's wife.
"How dare you call us at home! If you have a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody's house and complain about it," Candy Tistadt's minute-long message began. At one point, she uttered the phrase "snotty-nosed little brats," and near the end, she said, "Get over it, kid, and go to school!"
Not so long ago, that might have been the end of it -- a few choice words by an agitated administrator (or spouse). But with the frenetic pace of students' online networking, it's harder for grown-ups to have the last word. Kori's call and Tistadt's response sparked online debate among area students about whether the student's actions constituted harassment and whether the response was warranted.
Kori took Tistadt's message, left on his cellphone, and posted an audio link on a Facebook page he had created after he got home from school called "Let them know what you think about schools not being cancelled." The Web page listed Dean Tistadt's work and home numbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Example 2: I had a former boss who was born and raised in Montreal. We had a six-inch snowfall starting around 8am after we had arrived to work. After lunchtime, we were all busy back at work when he walked in half frozen. He ran off the road at lunchtime and wrecked his SUV into a ditch just down the road and was looking for a few people to help him out.
Yep, those northerners really know what their doing out there, alright. So don't start blowing smoke about who can and who can't drive in the snow.
“Since when do high school students get to call administrators at home to question their decisions?”
Since the day some school district officials decided they needed MY money to run their school. And your comment about the kid being of Indian—Hindu. That says loads.
Kids are sheeple for going to a GOVERNMENT SCHOOL! (the horror)—where they are taught not to THINK! (gasp).
If any kids do act like adults, THEY ARE BRATS (those little punks, why back in my day.....meh)!
Naw...just common sense...
Yup. Gov't employees oftentimes forget who their customers are.
Was the kid out of line? Maybe...but 3" of snow in the South constitutes a major emergency, IMHO. Of course, where I grew up in ME, we might not have even noticed it.
Locally yesterday, we got a freak ice storm at 7am. Roads near my house were impassable (even with my driving a heavy car, and the fact that I learned to drive in the winter, they were still impassable!). Word went out to *PARK* the schoolbusses right where they were until the salt trucks arrived/things warmed up.
Talk about a screwup. But, you can't mess with the weather, I guess.
Au contraire, the world rewards people with chutzpa.
Awfully thin skinned if one polite phone call can set her off that way
He is a snot-nosed brat with an overblown sense of his own importance. This does not bode well for his future.
I think the boy shows some promise
Oh, dear. You really didn’t read what I said. I’m not saying you can’t question their decisions, if you are a parent or a taxpayer, I’m saying this was not the way to do it, and the kid doesn’t have standing. If his parents or taxpayers have a problem with a school policy, there are appropriate ways to communicate with the administration. And that school district is known for being very receptive to the wishes of its parents and taxpayers. What would your reaction have been if this phone call had been a complaint about the school’s no-smoking policy, or the cafeteria food? High school kids don’t have the judgment or experience necessary to second-guess a decision like this, especially since it is evident that all this kid wanted was to bitch about not getting a half-day off school. And I don’t know what your problem is, I commented on the kid’s descent because I don’t know what the rules are in India. Perhaps high school kids there actually run the show. Perhaps they routinely call school administrators to question their judgment. I simply don’t know. Do you?
Pay for their education and they don’t want to go to school. Ingrates. 3 inches of snow? Give me a break!
When I first moved up to the DC area, I too used to laugh at how everything shut down with only a couple of inches of snow. However, after I started making the long commute to work on I-270 and U.S. 355, I realized that the issue was not how "much" snow the area got, but how "slick" the roadways were, based upon the slush factor and residual oil film on the road surfaces that made driving dangerous, compounded by the heavy congestion, which leaves very little room for error when traveling in bad weather.
Consequently, anymore, I get nervous about going to work whenever the weatherman says that it might snow, not because of my own lack of poor-weather driving skills (which are quite good, considering where I grew up), but because I don't trust anyone else's driving skills in bad weather who might be out on the road as well.
Public officials work for me. I’m their boss.
I think they all are at fault.
1. The kid for asking for school to be closed for 3 inches of snow.
2. The superintendent for having his number listed if he didn’t want calls at home.
3. The wife of the superintendent for overreacting.
I thought that because of global warming, we wouldn’t have snow anymore.
Homeschooling would be a double edged sword. You’d get away from dealing with the self important school officials, but you’d get no snow days ever.
Aren’t these school officials the same people who were taught as kids, and teach kids, to question authority?
Then I can only hope that, some day, he is one of your employees, where you all will be able to fully appreciate his chutzpa and respect for authority.
Good for you......
I guess you hand out your home phone number to all your customer’s children to call you any time of day and question your decisions that you make at your job.
Ha! I had the same thing happen to me many times when I worked in radio. We didn’t have a private phone line so the administrators used code words.
Ahh the joys of private school.. little snot nose tried this crap in a real school, he’d find he would be attending another school post haste.
LOL! We had a bit of a storm here this past weekend. Nothing serious, maybe 2-3" of snow - but enough to make the roads slick.
I had the priviledge of being oncall for the weekend, and needed to go in to work. :-( I was doing maybe 25-30 - a little slow (35mph limit), but about right for the conditions - and got passed on the right shoulder by some idiot in a Ford SUV honking his horn and doing 50-60 minimum.
I watched him fishtail when he got back on the road, clean out a roadsign, a couple of mailboxes, and something that was solid enough to bash in the front of his vehicle and pop his radiator. Ask me if I stopped to help out. :-)
Drunk or just stupid? I dunno. But I *do* know that snow brings out the idiots in the south. Doesn't matter if they're Northerners or Southerners...they're just damn fools.
Along with his intelligence and initiative.
Agreed.
Seemes to me the Dean’s wife is the problem, she really showed the young man what respect is didn’t she. Someone needs to teach her that young people learn from the adults and she really taught them a good lesson, didn’t she. None of this would be happening if she had stayed out of her husband’s business.
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