Snow Days

I realize it is February, but last weeks glimpse of Spring weather has me in a mood to not welcome the sleet and freezing rain that we experienced this week. I also am not looking forward to the unexpected winter weather yet to come. The interesting part, at least to me, is I love snow and most winters including this one, would say we really did not get enough snow.  We seem to make a big deal out of a few inches of snow here in my part of the world. It closes schools and cancels community activities. I realize that sometimes it is a no brainier and other times it is like really?

As for schools closing, I am glad that I am not involved with those decision.  What a huge responsibility it is to decide if buses can travel on township, county and state roads with in the school district to get our children to and from school safely.  I assume liability plays a huge part in this decision, but we (parents) seem to have a mentality that roads need to be completely clear, black if you will, before the school district can or should get buses out on the roads.  I have never driven a bus, let a lone a bus full of children headed to or from school in bad weather. so I have no basis to say one way or the other if the roads need to be completely clear or not to carry out this important task.  However many of us still have to travel to work, etc on these same roads on the same days that schools are canceled.   I realize it is a much different litmus test that is used on whether school is canceled or is in session, but think we should consider ideas to minimize make up days.

I am not saying we take unnecessary risks to get students in the classroom. It would also not be popular from a student's or a parent's point of view to never have a snow day.  It would also be very unrealistic.  I would be the first to admit that, I can still remember how great it was to see on the bottom of the TV or hear on the radio that school was canceled and my brothers and I were gifted a snow day.  I am of the opinion though that the roads do not need to be completely clear (black) to get students to school. Schools in areas that have more snow do not seem to have an issue, but you could argue that they are more experienced since snow is on the ground most of the winter.

I think two hour delays work well in many cases and I know some school districts have even started using a three hour delay and extend the school day by one hour.  I think this is a good new option for school districts to consider, since some times that extra hour can make all the difference when it comes to road conditions. Why not suspend bus transportation for the day. I am sure not having bus transportation on a given day would not be very popular, but why not at least explore the idea of a modified transportation plan.  When I was a kid, on days the weather was bad, bus transportation was modified to only provided  transportation on accessible roads. This does not occur anymore which I assume is because of lower student attendance as a result or more likely it was found to be unconstitutional or something like that anyway.

I am not in favor of having school just to have school, we still need to be able to provide a good atmosphere for learning each and everyday.  In our school district make-up days are added to the end of the school year.  It seems to me we should make up a few of these days on days such as President's Day or even shorten spring break a bit.  We just had several days off so, why not make them up as soon as possible after all calamity days are exhausted?  They seem to be a waste of time when added to the end of the school year. This is just a way of meeting state requirements in my mind as opposed to providing students the best education possible. 

As for evening activities, why are they always canceled as a result of school being closed? I am interested in why this is always the rule. It happens in all school districts, so it must be a universal rule.  I tried to research that issue but have not found anything at this point. Sometimes it makes sense, but other times the roads can be completely clear and because school was closed all evening activities are canceled no matter what.  My opinion is this rule was probably put in place, because someone pushed the envelop to far, so instead of handling the individual issue a zero tolerance was levied on all activities regardless of conditions at the time of the activity. 


The problem is there will be 50% of you who might agree with me and the other 50% who will think this guy  is an idiot. That puts me in the same position as school administration when making these important decision to go or not to go to school when the weather is questionable.