School Systems on delay due to cold temps...Thoughts?

hellohkb · January 2015

I was homeschooled so school was never canceled. I'd rather schools be safe than sorry and delay the schools. Personally, I don't get the "but *I* didn't get off for school!!" way of looking at it. We should be happy that the school system is evolving and making better decisions. Not every child can just throw on a thick winter coat and some long johns.

theartistformerlyknownas · January 2015

hellohkb said:

I was homeschooled so school was never canceled. I'd rather schools be safe than sorry and delay the schools. Personally, I don't get the "but *I* didn't get off for school!!" way of looking at it. We should be happy that the school system is evolving and making better decisions. Not every child can just throw on a thick winter coat and some long johns.

I didn't know you were homeschooled too! I think that makes 4 of us that I know of.

(I went to public school K-5, and was homeschooled 6-12.)

levioosa · January 2015

lolo883 said:

hellohkb said:

I was homeschooled so school was never canceled. I'd rather schools be safe than sorry and delay the schools. Personally, I don't get the "but *I* didn't get off for school!!" way of looking at it. We should be happy that the school system is evolving and making better decisions. Not every child can just throw on a thick winter coat and some long johns.

I didn't know you were homeschooled too! I think that makes 4 of us that I know of.

(I went to public school K-5, and was homeschooled 6-12.)

I was homeschooled too! (5th-8th grade)

bellaluna290 · January 2015

Climate change is real. It is colder than it was when we were children. I had to go to work last winter when it was -56 in the windchill. I am an adult and I am responsible for preparing myself for that. Some children have parents who, for whatever reason, aren't able to prepare them for those extreme temperatures.

hellosweetie1015 · January 2015

levioosa said:

lolo883 said:

hellohkb said:

I was homeschooled so school was never canceled. I'd rather schools be safe than sorry and delay the schools. Personally, I don't get the "but *I* didn't get off for school!!" way of looking at it. We should be happy that the school system is evolving and making better decisions. Not every child can just throw on a thick winter coat and some long johns.

I didn't know you were homeschooled too! I think that makes 4 of us that I know of.

(I went to public school K-5, and was homeschooled 6-12.)

I was homeschooled too! (5th-8th grade)

Meeeee too, K-10th. I always hated when my "real school" friends got snow days. My mother was a combination of a prison guard and a game warden those days.

velvethelicopters · January 2015

I was home schooled from K-5. It sucked.

theartistformerlyknownas · January 2015

I made us our own thread.

larrygaga · January 2015

Well, I have a bit of a bias because where I grew up the winter average is -35F ish so I am kinda like get the fuck to school it's not that cold wrap those bitches up and put their asses on the curb.

We only ever got school cancelled when the diesel in the buses froze and they wouldn't start. Any other bad weather day was go-time.

I have also had frost bite I think 4 times so I don't really have empathy for people who THINK they know what cold is.

beethery · January 2015

They did that here this morning. We got to -11 last night. FUUUUUCK that.

amelisha · January 2015

Yeah, school never gets cancelled up here for cold as it's too frequent. My profs at university used to cancel classes occasionally though by their own volition, sending an email like "It's -40, everyone, so the six of you who would have still shown up can just stay home too."

I don't have an issue with cancelling or delaying school if the roads are seriously unsafe though - up here it takes a lot to make driving a bad idea (as we're well-equipped for plowing/grading/gravel/etc., everyone is accustomed to driving in icy/snowy conditions, people have appropriate tires, and cars have block heaters), but in places where people aren't prepared to drive on ice and snow, keeping people safe should be a priority.

beethery · January 2015

amelisha said:

Yeah, school never gets cancelled up here for cold as it's too frequent. My profs at university used to cancel classes occasionally though by their own volition, sending an email like "It's -40, everyone, so the six of you who would have still shown up can just stay home too."

I don't have an issue with cancelling or delaying school if the roads are seriously unsafe though - up here it takes a lot to make driving a bad idea (as we're well-equipped for plowing/grading/gravel/etc., everyone is accustomed to driving in icy/snowy conditions, people have appropriate tires, and cars have block heaters), but in places where people aren't prepared to drive on ice and snow, keeping people safe should be a priority.

I'd guess that the bus companies up there probably have engine block heaters for their fleets. Makes a huuuuuuge difference. Not all of them have those in my area, you'd think they'd maybe get on board with that

theartistformerlyknownas · January 2015

amelisha said:

Yeah, school never gets cancelled up here for cold as it's too frequent. My profs at university used to cancel classes occasionally though by their own volition, sending an email like "It's -40, everyone, so the six of you who would have still shown up can just stay home too."

I don't have an issue with cancelling or delaying school if the roads are seriously unsafe though - up here it takes a lot to make driving a bad idea (as we're well-equipped for plowing/grading/gravel/etc., everyone is accustomed to driving in icy/snowy conditions, people have appropriate tires, and cars have block heaters), but in places where people aren't prepared to drive on ice and snow, keeping people safe should be a priority.

It definitely makes a big difference when you consider how equipped/accustomed people are to dealing with it. You have no business living in the UP/northern Canada if you don't have appropriate winter gear. But weather like that hits in Detroit when it normally only gets down to about 20 and lots of families can't afford/haven't prioritized a good winter coat/hat/boots/mittens/scarf, or it hits in someplace like Alabama that doesn't have the first clue what to do with snow, and things get really dangerous.

[Deleted User] · January 2015

rockin30ish · January 2015

I grew up on the east side of Michigan. I now live on the west side, just outside the lake effect bubble. Schools are called off so much differently here than back home. Here it's basically, if your tires aren't buried and/or it's just a little icy (which also has a different meaning here) there is school. If the actual temp is below 0, no school. It's so kids won't freeze walking to school.

Last winter, the kids here ended up with an extra week of winter break because we got buried in snow, then the wind chill was -40 and below for a week.

My daughter didn't have school today because of the temps. It was -2 actual temp, -23 real feel this morning. I'm glad it was cancelled. I wouldn't have wanted to even go out to start the car in that kind of cold!

larrygaga · January 2015

amelisha said:

Yeah, school never gets cancelled up here for cold as it's too frequent. My profs at university used to cancel classes occasionally though by their own volition, sending an email like "It's -40, everyone, so the six of you who would have still shown up can just stay home too."

I don't have an issue with cancelling or delaying school if the roads are seriously unsafe though - up here it takes a lot to make driving a bad idea (as we're well-equipped for plowing/grading/gravel/etc., everyone is accustomed to driving in icy/snowy conditions, people have appropriate tires, and cars have block heaters), but in places where people aren't prepared to drive on ice and snow, keeping people safe should be a priority.

UGH BOX

I agree with this. Although I don't feel bad for people in the south who flip their shit over an inch of snow, I also think they should take it slow and handle it in a safe way.

Maggie0829 · January 2015

pinkrevenge said:

I feel like people who say "well I did it, so you do too!" are both lying to themselves and just being jerks. First of all, polar vortexes were not a normal thing when I was a kid. We MAYBE had some record cold days, but we didn't have them for days on end every single year. Climate change is real, and it's really going to snap your fingers off. No one made me go outside for 15+ minutes to wait for a bus when my face could send me to the hospital, no matter how "tough" I want to pretend I was as a kid.
Secondly, we're supposed to want to do better for our kids. If you lost a toe to the cold, you should really want to make sure that children today don't have that risk. Why would you WANT to do those things to children?

H and I were discussing last night about winters when we were kids and if we ever remember it getting to be as cold as it is now and last winter with the polar vortex stuff. I mean maybe we had a day or two where it was in the teens, but typically we had temperatures ranging from high 20s to mid 40s in the winter. So these single digits and negative degrees with windchill just haven't been the norm for us here in the mid-atlantic.

velvethelicopters · January 2015

Yeah, it felt like -20° this morning. DF took the dogs out and came back in, promptly called his boss and said he was working from home. My boss called me and said he's staying home - thus, I get to stay home. I called school and said I am keeping my girls home. They closed in a half hour anyway.

It's almost noon. None of us are out of pajamas yet.

rockin30ish · January 2015

If DF didn't have to work, we'd all still be in our jammies. As it stands, kiddo and myself still are. She actually commented about it not too long ago. lol

tcnoble · January 2015

I am torn with my jealousy here. I live in Vegas. I'm a teacher. I would love to be at home in my pajamas.

But it was 72 degrees when I left work yesterday soooo there's that.

amelisha · January 2015

Yeah, I was made to go outside with a scarf over my face in "frostbite within ten minutes" temperatures every winter along with all my classmates, and I've done it for my half hour walk to work every day this week too, so I think in my own climate there is no reason to cancel school. Kids are going to have to live with this for a few weeks at least every year for the rest of their lives if they stay in my area, so it seems crazy to keep them home purely for cold weather (unless the roads are truly unsafe.)

We did get "indoor recess" when it was really cold though, because it took as much time to get dressed and undressed as recess was long.

I think the bottom line for me is that it needs to be dependent on comparative conditions. If we cancelled school at -20 here, kids would miss weeks of it every year. But in a place where that is unusually cold and no one is prepared for it, it's logical to cancel school. Same with the road thing - people here can drive on ice, but in the deep south it's way more dangerous because most people don't regularly have to do it.

One size definitely doesn't fit all for this one and I don't think it's fair to make fun of people who can't handle the conditions if it's not a common thing - I'd feel as bad for southern kids without winter jackets in just-barely-freezing temps because I know they aren't prepared for it because it's rare.

ohannabelle · January 2015

Fact is, there could, at any time, be any number of reasons a school could close for the day. Fact of life. Icy roads, floods, building damage, fire, bomb threats, power outages.

Hell, I was driving Moose to school one morning and there were police at the entrances. Armed fugitive in the area. Any students arriving on foot were being sent to lockdown in the gym, busses and cars were being turned around.

The "what about parents that have to work?" question? The answer is, too bad. As I've often heard around here, failure to plan on your part does not equal an emergency on my part.

Accept that this will happen, and possibly out of the blue. You should always have an emergency babysitting plan in place at the beginning of each school year. That isn't the school's responsibility. It's part of being a parent. Be prepared for an emergency.

The schools have legal responsibility for the health and safety of hundreds and thousands of other people's children. Guess how many risks you take, and how many times it's okay to gamble on those kid's safety? Zero. Never.

(Except the really tough Admial Perry LarryGaga type kids. Those little bastards can just take the hike through the subzero arctic and hobble home on their frostbitten feet. Uphill, in both directions. Give them a shot of whiskey with a hair in it, and hack their toes off when they get home. Slap em if they whine.)

hellohkb · January 2015

tcnoble said:
I am torn with my jealousy here. I live in Vegas. I'm a teacher. I would love to be at home in my pajamas.

But it was 72 degrees when I left work yesterday soooo there's that.

If it's 72 degrees out you get your weather complaint privileges revoked until the summertime

KatieinBkln · January 2015

jenna8984 said:

This has been a huge debate on my facebook since all the schools around here have a 2 hour delay. Many were saying "just bundle the kids in appropriate gear and they'll be fine". But many others pointed out that there are kids who don't have the proper gear. Whether it be their parents are just dipshits, or they really can't afford it. My local school started a coat drive because kids were coming in yesterday with just hoodies.
So as much as I do agree with the "suck it up, we never got days off", it's not right to have these kids standing in the cold and suffering because of their parent's mistakes. But then it also inconveniences all the parents who DO provide their kids the proper clothing, so it's a catch 22. Helping someone will screw someone else either way. In this situation, I'd rather screw the parent's end of being an hour late for work rather than a kid dying of frostbite.
To me, it's different between NC (even Boston) and places like Canada or North Dakota because there everyone really is prepared for it and there likely aren't 50 kids without jackets/hats. It's the same argument when people complain that NYC shuts down of a heat wave. "People in Phoenix work in 116°!" Yes, but their city is built around air conditioners and NYC has mostly buildings 150 years old that aren't equiped for that.

Not such a Catch-22. The lives and health of disadvantaged children are more important than other parents' inconvenience.

I'm on board with school closings. Sometimes it's a matter of public health, and most districts make it up anyway, so why risk having a kid contract hypothermia while waiting for a bus (lawsuit waiting to happen, also) when you don't have to?

When I was a kid we never closed for cold. We often closed early for snow, though--the buses had to go slower, and the same buses handled the traffic from the elementary schools (normally out at 3:15) and the middle/high schools (out at 2:45), so they had to bump the school day up in order to get all the kids home.

I guess I understand the "When I was a child this never happened" sentiment, but it's hardly a decent argument. Because: climate change. And because: even if you deny climate change, weather varies, yo. Maybe it (gasp!) actually wasn't this cold when we were kids. Or maybe times have changed to be a bit more compassionate of poorer families, although I'm not exactly holding my breath on that one (especially when you consider whether said poor parents are forced to take the day off work themselves, which they might not be able to afford, either. It's complicated).

ETA: I see you agree with this, @jenna8984! Just reiterating the point, in case it wasn't totally clear!

ashley8918 · January 2015

ohannabelle said:

Fact is, there could, at any time, be any number of reasons a school could close for the day. Fact of life. Icy roads, floods, building damage, fire, bomb threats, power outages.

Hell, I was driving Moose to school one morning and there were police at the entrances. Armed fugitive in the area. Any students arriving on foot were being sent to lockdown in the gym, busses and cars were being turned around.

The "what about parents that have to work?" question? The answer is, too bad. As I've often heard around here, failure to plan on your part does not equal an emergency on my part.

Accept that this will happen, and possibly out of the blue. You should always have an emergency babysitting plan in place at the beginning of each school year. That isn't the school's responsibility. It's part of being a parent. Be prepared for an emergency.

The schools have legal responsibility for the health and safety of hundreds and thousands of other people's children. Guess how many risks you take, and how many times it's okay to gamble on those kid's safety? Zero. Never.

(Except the really tough Admial Perry LarryGaga type kids. Those little bastards can just take the hike through the subzero arctic and hobble home on their frostbitten feet. Uphill, in both directions. Give them a shot of whiskey with a hair in it, and hack their toes off when they get home. Slap em if they whine.)

THIS. I am so fucking sick of parents complaining about this. This is what it means to be a parent, Jesus.

arrippa · January 2015

ohannabelle said:

Fact is, there could, at any time, be any number of reasons a school could close for the day. Fact of life. Icy roads, floods, building damage, fire, bomb threats, power outages.

Hell, I was driving Moose to school one morning and there were police at the entrances. Armed fugitive in the area. Any students arriving on foot were being sent to lockdown in the gym, busses and cars were being turned around.

The "what about parents that have to work?" question? The answer is, too bad. As I've often heard around here, failure to plan on your part does not equal an emergency on my part.

Accept that this will happen, and possibly out of the blue. You should always have an emergency babysitting plan in place at the beginning of each school year. That isn't the school's responsibility. It's part of being a parent. Be prepared for an emergency.

The schools have legal responsibility for the health and safety of hundreds and thousands of other people's children. Guess how many risks you take, and how many times it's okay to gamble on those kid's safety? Zero. Never.

(Except the really tough Admial Perry LarryGaga type kids. Those little bastards can just take the hike through the subzero arctic and hobble home on their frostbitten feet. Uphill, in both directions. Give them a shot of whiskey with a hair in it, and hack their toes off when they get home. Slap em if they whine.)

Teachers at my middle school went on strike. They closed the school for a few days until it could get resolved. That's the closest to a snow day that I ever got growing up in CA.

theartistformerlyknownas · January 2015

It's not the school's damn responsibility to babysit your kids. It's their responsibility to educate them, and keep them safe while doing so. You don't have a babysitter? Don't make someone else's kids suffer because of it because that's not the intent of public schools.

hellohkb · January 2015

@KatieinBkln you bring up a really good point about climate change.

KatieinBkln · January 2015

hellohkb said:

@KatieinBkln you bring up a really good point about climate change.

Thanks @hellokb--but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that a few other people brought it up upthread!

It's just fascinating to me the way humans tend to sort of...fetishize their bad experiences. Like, ask anyone who hits 21 whether they give a damn about lowering the drinking age anymore ("I had to get a fake and/or wait, so should they!") or certain people who've been bullied whether they think it's worthwhile to consider programs at schools and elsewhere to lessen the incidence of it ("Kids picked on me, and I turned out fine! Kids are too soft today with their 'everyone gets a trophy and no one gets a swirly' mentality!") or anyone who was spanked as a kid whether spanking is maybe not so great ("My daddy whupped me and I turned out GREAT! AGGRESSIVELY FUCKING GREAT!"). The same thing happens with school closings: "Well, we never got snow days/cold days/whatever, so today's kids deserve the same misery!"

Like...let's evolve, maybe. Let's try that.

hellohkb · January 2015

KatieinBkln said:

hellohkb said:

@KatieinBkln you bring up a really good point about climate change.

Thanks @hellokb--but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that a few other people brought it up upthread!

It's just fascinating to me the way humans tend to sort of...fetishize their bad experiences. Like, ask anyone who hits 21 whether they give a damn about lowering the drinking age anymore ("I had to get a fake and/or wait, so should they!") or certain people who've been bullied whether they think it's worthwhile to consider programs at schools and elsewhere to lessen the incidence of it ("Kids picked on me, and I turned out fine! Kids are too soft today with their 'everyone gets a trophy and no one gets a swirly' mentality!") or anyone who was spanked as a kid whether spanking is maybe not so great ("My daddy whupped me and I turned out GREAT! AGGRESSIVELY FUCKING GREAT!"). The same thing happens with school closings: "Well, we never got snow days/cold days/whatever, so today's kids deserve the same misery!"

Like...let's evolve, maybe. Let's try that.

Exactly! I don't understand why, if something bad happens to them, they would NOT want to prevent that from happening to another person?

thisismynickname2 · January 2015

As I sit here, shit just got real outside my office. Thick snow is going sideways. YAY!!

But seriously, I said it earlier and I'll say it again. People bitching now just weren't around the last time we had a bad weather cycle. I just had fun Googling pictures of snow from the Chicago Blizzard of 1967.

This old picture from '67 looks like Snowmaggedon from just a couple years back.

School Systems on delay due to cold temps...Thoughts?

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