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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2015 18:36:31 GMT -5
Last year was a fiasco in Alabama. After missing several days of weather events that didn't bother to show, one finally did and left kids (and their teachers, many of whom desperately wanted to get home to their own families but couldn't leave the kids) stranded at school for a day or two. Every time this sort of fiasco happens, the next year the school systems overreact. The following year after kids got killed when a tornado struck a high school in Enterprise, it seemed like we dismissed every time it rained.
So we have had almost ten days of potentially bad weather. Last Monday, Feb. 18, was President's Day so we were out. Tuesday and Thursday were potentially bad so we delayed arrival until 10 a.m. Monday and Tuesday was a repeat. All of these days were precautionary. I waited until 6:30 to leave instead of my normal 5:45 just so I could drive in daylight and avoid potential black ice. There was nothing.
A big snow storm is predicted for North and Central Alabama for tomorrow. They have already closed the schools. Like last year, it isn't supposed to arrive until after lunch. It arrived early last year, which gave the schools no time to dismiss and close. Predicting snow storms in Alabama is iffy at best. The meteorologists missed last year's, which is how the kids got stranded.
So I was just curious. Do parents appreciate the abundance of caution, which includes announcing the late arrival the night before. I guess this is so parents can make plans. Ditto for the snow day tomorrow. Or do they get pissed because most of the time the bad weather doesn't materialize? And then how do they feel when the bad weather did materialize, but the school decided to play chicken "this" time?
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Feb 24, 2015 19:11:22 GMT -5
I just wish it wasn't every school in the entire county that had the same go, no go, delay decisions. The elementary school is right in the middle of my neighborhood and the boundaries are the neighborhood. Every house is within 2 miles of the school and there are no major roads, only neighborhood roods. So, even if the buses didn't run, parents could easily drop-off. That's very different than the schools in the more rural parts of the county. Very few non-government employers shut down for road conditions, so people have to get in the car anyway. School was closed every day last week, but day cares were open.
I work for a bank. If there was one branch that had dangerous conditions, that branch would close- not every branch in the area. So, I guess that's why I have a tough with the decisions being so inclusive. But, then for-profit companies lose a lot more for being closed. Schools have very little to lose by closing.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Feb 24, 2015 19:22:04 GMT -5
Last week in SW Tennessee, schools were closed monday, tuesday wednesday and friday. So far this week, schools were closed yesterday. All due to three ice storms.
We now have a winter weather advisory in SW Tennessee for tomorrow which could easily change to a winter storm warning. Our neighboring counties in northern Mississippi, which have a winter storm warning, are already cancelling school for tomorrow. Those counties' schools were closed last week too just like ours.
Who knows if the schools will be open the rest of this week.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2015 19:37:51 GMT -5
yes I appreciate the caution, however, we have parents in my county who aren't happy no matter what - if they delay they should have started on time, if they close they should have opened, if they open they should have closed. our county is huge (76K students) and the busses are carefully orchestrated so everyone gets to where they need to go. not all students go to their 'home' school - several high schools have magnet/signature programs so kids from other schools go there, we have middle schools with signature programs, there are charter schools....it's impossible to split up open/close/delay/early dismissal by school.
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sbcalimom
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Post by sbcalimom on Feb 24, 2015 19:39:11 GMT -5
We live in a part of NM where it rarely snows, and when it does, it's usually gone within a few hours. We are close to mountains that get a lot of snow so they do close schools just in certain parts of the district. My DD1 is in kindergarten so we're just getting used to things. This year there's been one snow delay (2 hours) on a day that really wasn't that snowy but several other days that probably needed snow delays. So, it's annoying and makes no sense what they decide to do and why.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Feb 24, 2015 19:43:12 GMT -5
@southernsusana-back on February 5, 2008, our city and county schools let the students out of school at noon because possible severe tornadic weather was expected around the time the schools emptied out for the day. Quit a few parents and other people complained about the early dismissal that morning.
Sure enough, at the time schools would have been dismissing their students, a tornado did hit our city and several people were killed. It is always possible a school bus with children could have been hit by the tornado had school not been let out early.
So it was a very good call by the weather service and school officials. Some times the schools and weather forecasters 'win' and some times they 'lose'.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2015 19:44:21 GMT -5
They don't do much closing the day before here. It's only been a few times in the past couple years and it was always for super cold snaps where the wind chill was -70 or something crazy like that. After this year younger son will be in Kindy and our YMCA has no school/snow day childcare for free, so the advance notice won't do me much good anyhow as I won't have to line up childcare. Sweet.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Feb 24, 2015 20:24:27 GMT -5
I just wish it wasn't every school in the entire county that had the same go, no go, delay decisions. The elementary school is right in the middle of my neighborhood and the boundaries are the neighborhood. Every house is within 2 miles of the school and there are no major roads, only neighborhood roods. So, even if the buses didn't run, parents could easily drop-off. That's very different than the schools in the more rural parts of the county. Very few non-government employers shut down for road conditions, so people have to get in the car anyway. School was closed every day last week, but day cares were open. I work for a bank. If there was one branch that had dangerous conditions, that branch would close- not every branch in the area. So, I guess that's why I have a tough with the decisions being so inclusive. But, then for-profit companies lose a lot more for being closed. Schools have very little to lose by closing.That's not true around here, schools lose funding if they don't meet mandated numbers of attendance days. The big metro area south of me got hit by a LES storm in November that dropped 6' of snow on them, and many districts there used up their allotted snow days. When they reach that point, any future snow days have to be compensated for by taking back holidays. Christmas was a long one this year, but some convoluted contract situation meant they couldn't take back those days. They planned to take back at least one day from the winter break (last week), but frigid temps forced a snow day on the last day before the break, so they planned to take back two days. More frigid temps meant, you guessed it, school was closed on those two days as well. Yesterday was again below the magic number of -25 WC, so many schools in my area were closed or opted for a 2 HR delay (our district), but I noticed none of the snowvember area districts closed, they are desperate. I prefer to get the closing info the night before if possible; the district does an area wide robocall with the info, but it is probably 5am. The 2 hour delay was a bit of a hassle since I'd agreed to a 10 am meeting. My choices were leave 10 yo son home to get on bus himself, take him with me to attempt to catch a random bus in the village, or drive him to school after the 45 minute meeting. I opted to duck out of the meeting briefly to put him on a bus in the village, and return to the meeting. Good call - that meeting didn't end until 1:30pm.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2015 20:48:15 GMT -5
We have an exception to making up the days. We had those horrible tornadoes a few years ago (NOT the one that killed the kids at Enterprise). It demolished a few high schools. The legislature passed a bill saying you don't have to make the days up if the governor declares an emergency. With the teachers staying overnight with the students (no extra pay ... Not even a raise that year), the governor hardly wanted to say, "Spending the night doesn't count!" So he declared the emergency last year that let school miss 5 Or 6 days withou having to make them up!
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NastyWoman
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Post by NastyWoman on Feb 24, 2015 20:50:46 GMT -5
Total ignorance here but many years ago (1st gulf war) the school my kids attended in Bangkok was closed for a few weeks due to terrorism threats. All those missed days were made up by making everyone go to school on Saturdays for a couple of months. Is that not on the table anywhere in the US as a solution to excess snow/bad weather days? I mean the material has to be covered somehow and without sufficient time alloted to it, how will that be accomplished?
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Feb 24, 2015 21:03:43 GMT -5
Yes. I do prefer the extra caution and the early announcements. If the kids don't have school on a day that DH and I both work, it gives us time to prepare.
I much prefer that than the principal waiting until 5:59 to cancel school the morning of. In my parts, the decision to call off school has to be made by 6am.
I dunno. I guess I don't get mad at schools if the forecast doesn't pan out. And, I'd rather my kids be safe than not safe.
In our public school district, they add minutes on to the school day to make up for snow days once the built in ones are used up. Now, I don't understand that. It's not like kids are getting *that* much more of an education because they are staying at school 4 minutes longer every day for a few months.
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steph08
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Post by steph08 on Feb 24, 2015 21:04:33 GMT -5
We are in PA so snow delays and cancellations are not uncommon. However, when I was in school, which wasn't that long ago, I never remember being delayed because of cold (it was -18 here today, not factoring in the wind chill). It seems like over the last month, 75% of the school days had either a delay or cancellation.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Feb 24, 2015 21:07:19 GMT -5
Total ignorance here but many years ago (1st gulf war) the school my kids attended in Bangkok was closed for a few weeks due to terrorism threats. All those missed days were made up by making everyone go to school on Saturdays for a couple of months. Is that not on the table anywhere in the US as a solution to excess snow/bad weather days? I mean the material has to be covered somehow and without sufficient time alloted to it, how will that be accomplished? My dad teaches in a very rural district and they tend to have a lot of snow days. They schedule their graduation ceremony for late June (school is scheduled to end mid-May) to account for the potential makeup days. They've been off since last Monday and I think are scheduled to be out through Friday. Personally, I'd rather be notified the night before so that I can log onto my work intranet and "call in," figure out what I can work on from home, etc.
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gooddecisions
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Post by gooddecisions on Feb 24, 2015 21:24:14 GMT -5
Total ignorance here but many years ago (1st gulf war) the school my kids attended in Bangkok was closed for a few weeks due to terrorism threats. All those missed days were made up by making everyone go to school on Saturdays for a couple of months. Is that not on the table anywhere in the US as a solution to excess snow/bad weather days? I mean the material has to be covered somehow and without sufficient time alloted to it, how will that be accomplished? In my county, if they use up all the built-in snow days, they just add 15 minutes to the day for the remainder of the year and don't have to add any additional days. As long as they can get to 990 instructional hours, they've met the contractual agreement.
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GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl
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Post by GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl on Feb 24, 2015 21:24:48 GMT -5
Here in Massachusetts, I can recall only a couple of times over the past 15 years that one or both kids have been in school when the school district got the call wrong -- once when they should have cancelled and didn't and once when they did and shouldn't have. There have been only one or two years when we didn't use all of our alloted snow days (and then some!), so there were lots of opportunities to get it wrong but they overwhelming made the right call. We get enough snow here on a consistent basis that it is less of a guess. And, while I totally understand the cost to private business, I am in favor of the Governor ordering us off of the roads (and thereby, in effect, shutting down private employers for the day(s)) when appropriate. The roads get plowed faster and there are fewer idiots to rescue. Even as a SAHM, I preferred the call the night before. It makes a huge difference if you only have to brush off and shovel out one car instead of two. It's also nice to sleep in on a snowy weekday morning -- everything is hushed and quiet (until the snow plow goes by, LOL). In our old district, the local fire station had a horn that would blow in a certain pattern to announce either no school or a delayed start. That was kind of quaint, but you had to know to be awake at 5:45 a.m. to hear it. Now, with reverse 911 and all of the social media, we simply get phone calls and texts. Our current district participates in a program that allows students from Boston proper to attend our rural suburban school district. You can bet that those parents, and their kids, appreciate knowing the night before--many of the kids are getting on a school bus at 5:30 a.m. to make the trip out to our district. Of course, my kids LOVE to know the night before. The sense of joy and relief, even as a senior and junior in high school, is palpable. Sometimes, when they were younger, they would go to bed before school was cancelled. It was really fun to watch them wake up late and jump and shout for joy when they realized they had a "surprise" snow day. This winter, all of our storms have been significant and all of the days off were necessary. We do have to have 180 days in attendance by state law, but the teachers' contracts expire on June 30th every year, so as the last day of school moves closer to the end of June, we will have to extend the school day or sacrifice some of our upcoming April vacation (unless the state legislature votes to waive the 180 day requirement this year -- something it has done in the past). I have lost several days of pay because I am hourly. DH was paid for snow days because he is salaried, and his generous employer even paid the hourly factory workers (although there may be some business interruption coverage that made that generosity easier, LOL).
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violagirl
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Post by violagirl on Feb 24, 2015 22:07:29 GMT -5
This topic is debated every single year. So far kids have missed 10 days of school due to weather. We don't have makeup days. Teachers just compress their teaching a little. Considering how much time is wasted as school doing busy work I don't think it is a big deal.
I would be very upset (as a kid) to have to go to school on Saturday. There are usually 1 or 2 cancellations in a year that might fizzle and you get people complaining about them cancelling school for nothing, but sometimes the weather is just hard to predict. Then there are other times when they SHOULD have cancelled but didn't.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Feb 25, 2015 2:36:54 GMT -5
The what, now? Snow days?
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marvholly
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Post by marvholly on Feb 25, 2015 6:38:06 GMT -5
Here in metro Chicago the state has a MANDATED number of school days required. Our districts will be adding on days after the calendar end of the school year. Generally, our teachers have contracts that prohibit Saturday classes (and parents w/kids on sport teams would be LIVID) or extending the school day. Extending the day would also wreck havok with our busing schedules since many buses are used for grade school and middle school and/or high school.
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wvugurl26
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Post by wvugurl26 on Feb 25, 2015 7:10:59 GMT -5
I've seen districts extend the school day by a few minutes. When it's for everyone they just have to adjust the bus schedules. Not really that big of a deal. They need 180 days, they can't go past a certain date in June, and they had cancelled all days off like spring break. Winter was so crappy that year the snowbanks on the sides of the road were as tall as the buses.
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michelyn8
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Post by michelyn8 on Feb 25, 2015 8:02:32 GMT -5
Local schools here missed all of last week due to snow. They got lucky last week since most systems were closed for President's Day and didn't have to worry about closing early (snow hit early afternoon).
In VA, we normally get snow and then its goes away after a day or two. This year is an outlier in that the temps have only been above freezing maybe 2x in the past 10 days so the snow we got last week is still on the ground in a lot of places. It snowed on Monday and it was Thursday before the neighborhood roads even began to melt. We got a small snow shower as I was leaving work yesterday and while normally not enough to affect anything, receiving it on top of the icy mess already on the ground and sides of the road has caused some systems to open late today. And now they are saying we are going to get hit again tonight..........uugghh!!!
Our school systems have snow/weather days built into their calendars and plans of how to make up the days if they use them all up. This morning on the news, they were talking about how some systems have used all their days and what they were doing to make up the time before they start taking away from spring break or other holidays. The standard policy seems to be using scheduled teacher work day and making scheduled early release days into full days first.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 8:25:20 GMT -5
Last year during the winter from hell we went over our snow day allotment. Instead of extending into the summer they had school on a few days that had previously been scheduled off. I think a teachers workshop day and Good Friday. Maybe one in Spring Break. Personally, I think Summer vacation is too long and pushing the school year out a week wouldn't have been a big deal. I think this summer it's going to be 13 weeks off. It's a challenge keeping their brains from going to mush during that time.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Feb 25, 2015 18:18:52 GMT -5
I just wish it wasn't every school in the entire county that had the same go, no go, delay decisions. The elementary school is right in the middle of my neighborhood and the boundaries are the neighborhood. Every house is within 2 miles of the school and there are no major roads, only neighborhood roods. So, even if the buses didn't run, parents could easily drop-off. That's very different than the schools in the more rural parts of the county. Very few non-government employers shut down for road conditions, so people have to get in the car anyway. School was closed every day last week, but day cares were open. I work for a bank. If there was one branch that had dangerous conditions, that branch would close- not every branch in the area. So, I guess that's why I have a tough with the decisions being so inclusive. But, then for-profit companies lose a lot more for being closed. Schools have very little to lose by closing. Actually, public schools have quite a bit to lose by closing. State funding is usually on a per school day basis. Close the school, lose a day worth of funding. Or tack an additional day onto the end of the school year to get the full allotment of funding. Ever notice how many school closing annoucements are effective as of about noon? Ain't no magic to it. The weather doesn't suddenly get worse at 11:30. Don't know how true this might be for other areas, or how representative it is of today, but back in the day, if a school in MN was in session into the first period after the first lunch break (11:00 in many MN schools), that counted as a full school day for purposes of receiving state funding for the day. Considering the number of two income families today, I expect that schools are much more cautious about weather than they used to be. When a parent was at home during the day, it was pretty easy to cancel school for the afternoon and send kids home. These days, doing that would cause a whole bunch of problems of unsupervised kids at home or teachers lives being endangered by having to stay at school to supervise kids whose parents aren't able to pick them up when school suddenly closes in the middle of the work day. Teachers staying at school as weather and road coditions get progressively worse puts teachers at risk. (This is a bigger issue than it used to be when both techers and parents lived closer to where they work.) So schools have probably adopted the cautious approach now, and announce pre-emptive school closings before the real impact of the weather is apparent. It isn't like the old days when Dad would get up at 4AM and start driving school bus routes to see what the conditions were like and annouce the school closing by 6:00 or 6:30 AM. In those days, Dad's logic was if he could get through roads with a station wagon, a school bus should be able to get through without getting stuck.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Feb 25, 2015 21:11:13 GMT -5
I just wish it wasn't every school in the entire county that had the same go, no go, delay decisions. The elementary school is right in the middle of my neighborhood and the boundaries are the neighborhood. Every house is within 2 miles of the school and there are no major roads, only neighborhood roods. So, even if the buses didn't run, parents could easily drop-off. That's very different than the schools in the more rural parts of the county. Very few non-government employers shut down for road conditions, so people have to get in the car anyway. School was closed every day last week, but day cares were open. I work for a bank. If there was one branch that had dangerous conditions, that branch would close- not every branch in the area. So, I guess that's why I have a tough with the decisions being so inclusive. But, then for-profit companies lose a lot more for being closed. Schools have very little to lose by closing. Actually, public schools have quite a bit to lose by closing. State funding is usually on a per school day basis. Close the school, lose a day worth of funding. Or tack an additional day onto the end of the school year to get the full allotment of funding. Ever notice how many school closing annoucements are effective as of about noon? Ain't no magic to it. The weather doesn't suddenly get worse at 11:30. Don't know how true this might be for other areas, or how representative it is of today, but back in the day, if a school in MN was in session into the first period after the first lunch break (11:00 in many MN schools), that counted as a full school day for purposes of receiving state funding for the day. Considering the number of two income families today, I expect that schools are much more cautious about weather than they used to be. When a parent was at home during the day, it was pretty easy to cancel school for the afternoon and send kids home. These days, doing that would cause a whole bunch of problems of unsupervised kids at home or teachers lives being endangered by having to stay at school to supervise kids whose parents aren't able to pick them up when school suddenly closes in the middle of the work day. Teachers staying at school as weather and road coditions get progressively worse puts teachers at risk. (This is a bigger issue than it used to be when both techers and parents lived closer to where they work.) So schools have probably adopted the cautious approach now, and announce pre-emptive school closings before the real impact of the weather is apparent. It isn't like the old days when Dad would get up at 4AM and start driving school bus routes to see what the conditions were like and annouce the school closing by 6:00 or 6:30 AM. In those days, Dad's logic was if he could get through roads with a station wagon, a school bus should be able to get through without getting stuck. This definitely rings true. The decision to close also is swayed by the district type - city, suburban, rural. City districts around here have to consider the large number of students walking to school, so they are much more likely to close for extremely cold conditions lately. There's also the once burned, twice shy syndrome - the big city south of me did not close one time a storm was predicted for late afternoon, and the storm hit at the height of the afternoon bus run, a major blunder. After that, they overreacted and preemptively closed schools to prevent a repeat. There was a predicted storm that didn't materialize after schools closed, and the sentiment swung back the other way again. I think some districts wait to see what others are doing, and jump on the bandwagon. Our district shares a superintendent with a neighboring district, so you know he's making the same call for both. When I was in HS, I attended a private HS in the city, but so many students were from my district that the school would close if either the city or my district closed. If you were from a different district, and that closed while the school remained open, you were excused due to busing. Generally, though, neighboring districts tend to follow one another unless the storm geography is different (in the LE bands vs outside, or along the lake shores vs inland). Apparently there is an app to predict if your school is likely to close, and it is said to be eerily good. How many days have been already used is one of the criteria, suggesting that schools are less likely to close if they are out of days, and more likely if they have days to burn, independent of storm predictions.
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wyouser
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Post by wyouser on Feb 26, 2015 11:22:15 GMT -5
Good discussions, but, if somebody hadn't drug that damn rat out of his hole and made him look at his shadow......well ...this wouldn't be a topic now...Next year, just let the critter hibernate....or better yet, Nuke his burrow and end the problem forever!!
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Feb 26, 2015 11:49:49 GMT -5
We live in a community close to lake Michigan. This morning we had what the call "Lake Effect Snow". We had at least a foot of snow on the driveway. DH told me to tell DD she could stay home today. I told DD, DD said she had a major test in her 1st hour class. DD has a new car (Elantra) but it does not handle real well in the snow. She went to school. She works a 1/2 day then has work release to work in her Dad's office - he told her to take the day off, b/c snow is supposed to start up again at noon.
My commute to work this am was bad. I drive 25 miles to work, all expressway. Normally there is little snow on the freeway, but I have AWD and I nearly slid into another car at least 2x.
We pretty much pride ourselves on snow never keeping us from work/school in the mid-west, but I often ask myself why are we doing this anyways. I have been working 10 hour days and 4-8 on the weekend. I had at least 2 12 hour days in the last week. Taking a day off should be reasonable. Sigh.
At least no one gives me flak if I come in late.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Feb 26, 2015 13:00:52 GMT -5
We live in a community close to lake Michigan. This morning we had what the call "Lake Effect Snow". We had at least a foot of snow on the driveway. DH told me to tell DD she could stay home today. I told DD, DD said she had a major test in her 1st hour class. DD has a new car (Elantra) but it does not handle real well in the snow. She went to school. She works a 1/2 day then has work release to work in her Dad's office - he told her to take the day off, b/c snow is supposed to start up again at noon.
My commute to work this am was bad. I drive 25 miles to work, all expressway. Normally there is little snow on the freeway, but I have AWD and I nearly slid into another car at least 2x.
We pretty much pride ourselves on snow never keeping us from work/school in the mid-west, but I often ask myself why are we doing this anyways. I have been working 10 hour days and 4-8 on the weekend. I had at least 2 12 hour days in the last week. Taking a day off should be reasonable. Sigh.
At least no one gives me flak if I come in late. Do you have winter tires? It makes a huge difference.
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Feb 26, 2015 17:16:25 GMT -5
All season radials. We did talk about buying winter tires for DD's car. I drive in a lot of winter conditions in rush hour. I don't normally have too much trouble.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Feb 26, 2015 17:54:15 GMT -5
All season radials. We did talk about buying winter tires for DD's car. I drive in a lot of winter conditions in rush hour. I don't normally have too much trouble. I thought all season radials were good enough. They're not.
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t-dog
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Post by t-dog on Feb 26, 2015 19:12:01 GMT -5
In my school career here in Nor Cal. school closed early in third grade (1977) because it was snowing...snow barely dusted the ground, but it was so unusual they let us out of class to play in the parking lot. Generally we have to drive to Tahoe for snow.
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marvholly
Junior Associate
Joined: Dec 21, 2010 11:45:21 GMT -5
Posts: 6,540
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Post by marvholly on Feb 27, 2015 6:21:47 GMT -5
We live in a community close to lake Michigan. This morning we had what the call "Lake Effect Snow". We had at least a foot of snow on the driveway. DH told me to tell DD she could stay home today. I told DD, DD said she had a major test in her 1st hour class. DD has a new car (Elantra) but it does not handle real well in the snow. She went to school. She works a 1/2 day then has work release to work in her Dad's office - he told her to take the day off, b/c snow is supposed to start up again at noon.
My commute to work this am was bad. I drive 25 miles to work, all expressway. Normally there is little snow on the freeway, but I have AWD and I nearly slid into another car at least 2x.
We pretty much pride ourselves on snow never keeping us from work/school in the mid-west, but I often ask myself why are we doing this anyways. I have been working 10 hour days and 4-8 on the weekend. I had at least 2 12 hour days in the last week. Taking a day off should be reasonable. Sigh.
At least no one gives me flak if I come in late. I also live close to Lake Michigan - metro Chicago. The 'predicted' dusting of snow became about 5 inches due to lake effect snows. We are forecast for MORE (and significant) snow Sun, and 2 more days over the next 7. We are also predicted for temps hitting at or above freezing 3 days of the next 7.
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