Finally! Finally, we made it back to school, the high school kids were able to finish their exams and we'll be able to start the second semester tomorrow...8 days late.
I was beginning to wonder if we'd make it because just about every other county around us canceled and had another snow day (and many are cancelling already for tomorrow as well) but we went ahead and went. I won't make any criticisms regarding the roads - I live in town where the roads aren't as hilly or twisty and they tend to get cleared and plowed before the county roads do. For all I know, there's county roads under two inches of ice. But we went ahead and had school (thank goodness), and we'll be making up our extra snow day on Monday, MLK day.
However.
One thing that has always perplexed me is how rarely we use delays. When I taught Up North we used delays all the time. The district would announce a two hour delay, which gave everyone a chance to see better in the daylight, and if the roads were still dangerous, they'd cancel for the day. However, a lot of times that two hour delay was all the time we needed for the roads to begin to clear up, especially on a sunny day where the morning sun could begin the job of melting. True, our classes were shorter, but we weren't having to make up so many snow days.
Down here, at least in my district, delays are rare. And what's even stranger (and this just makes absolutely no freaking sense to me at all) is that even if we are on a delay, faculty and staff sill have to report at the regular time. Which is two hours before the kids come in, assuming we're on a delay. So, if the roads are too bad for buses, how come they aren't too bad for employees? After all, supposedly, the whole issue is safety - we don't run buses when the roads are unsafe. So why should the school employees get out on these dangerous roads to get to school? And then, if it was eventually decided that we needed to go ahead and cancel school, (because the roads are unsafe) we then have to dismiss all the employees that went ahead and showed up and send them back out on dangerous roads.
Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Ideally? Everyone reports two hours late...and that way, if it's decided that a cancellation is in order, there's no one to send back home. And if the delay is all we need, we'd get in our scheduled day.
But hey, no one asks for my opinion. I just give it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I used to work at a school over an hour's drive away from home and the weather could be quite different there. I got there one morning to find that they'd called a delay. There were some kids there anyway - their parents had dropped them off on their way to work. There were a couple of other teachers who said they were p so they figured they'd drive carefully and head for work . . . All the maintenance staff were there - and they were ANNOYED that we had shown up early. They didn't want our cars in the parking lot - the delay was called in part because they needed time to plow the parking lots!
I'd never really heard of delays until about a year ago when my BFF who is a VP in snowy district told me they started using them. She said they rarely do snow days anymore because a 2-hour delay is usually enough time to give plows and people time to deal with the overnight snowfall. Makes complete sense. Those completely disabling snowstorms are not that common--especially in places used to snow anyway!
I'm a Yankee, moved to the South, also. Yeah, my husband and I snicker at the wussy people who close for 2 inches for snow.
But-
They don't have enough snow plows, they don't have salt trucks, and their drivers are inexperienced with snow and ice.
I didn't think that we needed to lose 4 days (we're out again today). We've lost enough time that we'll have to lose days off (however, if they were professional days, I'm OK with that - they were mostly a waste of time).
We are on Snow Day Number 4 in Atlanta. Our school district has used delays before. We are going to have to make up 3 days, but I can't believe your district is using MLK Holiday as a make-up day :(
We will be waiting to see what tomorrow brings.
For T. Banks - there's nothing personal about using MLK day; Presidents Day and Good Friday are also on the list (basically every holiday we have outside of spring break). Considering the way the weather has been, I'm sure we'll be using those up as well.
I Agree!
My first year of teaching we had a two-hour delay (so I came to work two hours late) only to find out that I was supposed to be in at the normal time.
I was told that the "logic" of the delay was not so much concern that the roads were bad - rather the concern is "Bad roads will make the buses drive slower, making them late and kids will freeze to death at the bus stops."
I think the truth is more along the lines of "No one will sue the school district if an adult gets into an accident on icy roads. But a school bus has 75 potential lawsuits!"
No one asks my opinion either - but if I were president of the world, snow days would be work from home days. Teachers would email or upload assignments/enrichment actives; students would complete online or print and turn in the following day.
Snow days! Wow we rarely get any here in Central Texas. I would love to see snow even if for one day with more than a dusting.
Post a Comment