It’s not snowing. It did snow yesterday (the roads were awful, but they kept the schools open) but hasn’t snowed for eight hours, maybe ten. All the roads appear to be plowed. I had to go out and all primary and secondary roads are clear, and they’re doing the tertiaries. Car didn’t so much as slip. There is no freezing rain or ice. The forecast for today is sunny, with no chance of a substantial snowfall.
Honestly, I think they do this just to get a day off.
Seriously, you didn’t get any snow and it is sunny? I’m at the opposite end of the GTA and we had about 8" of snow last night. It was a full on blizzard. I really wish this was a ski resort…
Our superintendent has started, on days like that, asking transportation department staff to send her pictures of nasty icy roads. When she announces school closures, she posts those pictures on Facebook along with the announcement.
It’s possible that most of the district is safe, but the northern (for example) end of it is jacked.
I guarantee they don’t do it because they want a snow day. Logistically, snow days are a pain in the ass for school districts.
That’s been the cause for some school closings here, because extreme cold makes the school buses unreliable in starting (diesel) and the school doesn’t want to take the chance on having kids stranded at school at the end of the day.
Dear Canadians,
Please keep your arctic air to yourselves. Here in Chicago-ish we’re OK with snow and reasonable amounts of winter temperatures. However, tomorrow morning the temperature is expected to be 20 to 25 degrees below zero. Nevermind the wind chill, that’s the expected temperature. Why are you doing this to us?
When I was a teacher is was the opposite - the administration was desperate NOT to lose school time to snow days. However, schools really can’t afford to take chances because all it takes is one bus sliding off a road. With kids in it. Then everyone wants to know why they took chances when bad weather was possible.
And weather can change significantly during the day. So there were times it looked great in the morning and we all came in. Then it got really bad and then you are faced with two lousy choices:
Dismiss early and piss all the parents off (“I work, I can’t take off with no notice in the middle of the day!” and “If this was going to happen, why didn’t you just call it a snow day?!”
Have a normal dismissal in dangerous road conditions (again, “Why didn’t you just call it a snow day?!”)
That arctic blast has hit us waaaaayyy down here is extreme S. Arkansas. It’s pitiful how unprepared we are for these things. Thank you Canadians! Just wait I’m gonna send some heat your way in a few months! Share and share alike.
Another possibility is parking lots–especially in apartment complexes. We don’t get snow in Texas, we get ice, and when the parking lots ice up, they become very dangerous for kids to walk across and for busses to drive in. The parking lots are often awful even after the roads clear.
It’s also true that if it’s way, way colder than normal (I don’t know what normal is for you), kids, especially poor kids, don’t have appropriate coats. If the busses are running slowly because of the ice and snow, that means you have kids way under dresssed waiting outside for way longer than you want.
Finally, the later you call a school day, the bigger of a mess it is. If it could go either way at 5:00, so you wait another hour to decide and then decide to cancel it, people have no time to make child care arrangements. This is how you get seven year olds locked in apartments all day with strict instructions to not answer the door. It’s not good, but mom can’t risk getting fired and there’s just no other option. With even a little more warning, it’s a lot easier to reach out to your support network.
But yeah, I agree with LHoD–no one at the central admin level likes snow days. They usually have to go in anyway and it’s a logistical nightmare.
<old man rant>
I feel this way about almost every snow day. New Brunswick is already 200 hours per year behind the average when it comes to hours of instruction. We don’t need these snow days when it is not snowing. I’ve seen them cancel school for a forecast of freezing rain that begins at 3:30pm. School is out by 2:30. I’m a big proponent of making use of delayed starts or early stops. If it snowed the night before and roads aren’t quite clear, delay school by 90 minutes and give the plows time to do the job. If bad weather is coming in the afternoon then have school let out early. Don’t be afraid to bring the kids in and then, if things start to look bad, send them home.
I went to school in the late 70s and throughout the 80s. I was an Air Force brat and lived all over from Northern Alberta, Manitoba, Calgary, Australia, and Colorado. In all those places I think I can count on 2 hands the number of times school was out and out cancelled. Were buses cancelled? Sure. The buses were cancelled a few times each year if the weather was bad. School was still open and you were expected to be in if you could. Again, lots of use of late starts and early dismissals.
I’ve lived in Toronto most of my life and have come to hate the 401 (now that I’m a geezer). Even so, I had committed to an appointment yesterday afternoon in Port Hope (about 80 miles - mostly east along the 401 - from my place).
I was thrilled to have a legit excuse. Snow day for me!!
Last year my college had two ‘snow days’ in a row- on the first day there was no snow, the second day we had maybe 1cm. The site (and the other 5 branches of the college) was closed, emails sent round saying no staff would be on site, the gated would be locked do not come in.
It was the first predicted snow in the county for about 5 years, and some staff and students do drive over an hour to get there down tiny back lanes, but it was still bleedin’ hilarious. There was literally a sprinkle in one corner of the county on day 1.
Share and share alike.