School Cancelation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously? School might be closed for a week. Your kid will survive.

They will survive. But it is neither necessary nor very disruptive. Why can't attendance and stuff be optional?

Usually because there are safety issues for teachers and staff getting to school. If I were a teacher, I literally would not be able to come in. No plows on my road at all. Tried to get my car out and it got stuck. My neighborhood is accessible to metro only by car (or bike, which doesn’t work in the ice).

I guess you could ask school to open and have voluntary attendance for teachers and kids, and then it’s not actually an instructional day, just a babysitting day.

But that is OK. If you can't come in, can some of the kids and some of the teachers who live nearby still go to work? This is how I grew up.

Why is it a baby sitting day? If the music teacher can go, they learn music. But not French. It is still a meaningful day.

Oh my God tell me you have no idea how operating a school and teaching a class works without telling me you have no idea how operating a school and teaching a class works.

Multiple classes will be combined because many teachers are out. The teacher can’t progress in the curriculum because half the class is out and the kids who are in are all mixed together from different classes. And a some catch all enrichment that requires no background knowledge from the curriculum is just babysitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are not realizing that it's not just the streets; it's the sidewalks, too, for kids who walk. (Believe it or not, a lot do, at least at our kid's school.) Yes, I completely understand that residents are supposed to shovel their sidewalks, but that won't make them magically clear if they haven't, and a lot haven't. You can't just expect kids to walk in the streets as an alternative. (This is why I think the public schools, other than maybe DCPS, are going to be closed all week.) The sidewalk on the main road to our kid's school is now under about 3-4 feet of snow/ice from the snow plow, so there's no way that is getting cleared in the next week given the anticipated cold. Parents/school will get it sorted, but it won't be in the next day or two.

Do people realize how hard it is to juggle the children at home while working? Sometimes solo parenting?

Then take some time off. Problem solved!!

You know, the university requires professors to teach online. All the grant deadlines remain. Not everyone can take time off.

Find a babysitter. I’m sympathetic to your plight, but this is something many parents have to deal with. You can’t expect schools to open in these conditions for childcare reasons.

You need to plan ahead and have options. When my kids were too young to stay home, I had a couple of local young preschool teachers who were always happy to have extra hours when their schools were closed. There were always recent grads looking for jobs who were happy to be well compensated for an easy day. We’re in NoVA now and I found good snow day sitters by advertising at NOVA community college. When we were in DC I found students from AU and GW who were happy to babysit at odd times and often had snow days when we did. You just need to plan ahead and be prepared. We live in an area with tons of options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously? School might be closed for a week. Your kid will survive.

They will survive. But it is neither necessary nor very disruptive. Why can't attendance and stuff be optional?

Usually because there are safety issues for teachers and staff getting to school. If I were a teacher, I literally would not be able to come in. No plows on my road at all. Tried to get my car out and it got stuck. My neighborhood is accessible to metro only by car (or bike, which doesn’t work in the ice).

I guess you could ask school to open and have voluntary attendance for teachers and kids, and then it’s not actually an instructional day, just a babysitting day.

But that is OK. If you can't come in, can some of the kids and some of the teachers who live nearby still go to work? This is how I grew up.

Why is it a baby sitting day? If the music teacher can go, they learn music. But not French. It is still a meaningful day.

Oh my God tell me you have no idea how operating a school and teaching a class works without telling me you have no idea how operating a school and teaching a class works.

Multiple classes will be combined because many teachers are out. The teacher can’t progress in the curriculum because half the class is out and the kids who are in are all mixed together from different classes. And a some catch all enrichment that requires no background knowledge from the curriculum is just babysitting.

But I don't recall schools ever closing for this long in Massachusetts. It snows very often. What about Canada?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which schools have cancelled Mon/Tues? I think most have cancelled Monday but I haven’t heard of much cancelling Tuesday.

It is completely ridiculous if you grow up in Europe. Snow closes school for days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously? School might be closed for a week. Your kid will survive.

They will survive. But it is neither necessary nor very disruptive. Why can't attendance and stuff be optional?

Usually because there are safety issues for teachers and staff getting to school. If I were a teacher, I literally would not be able to come in. No plows on my road at all. Tried to get my car out and it got stuck. My neighborhood is accessible to metro only by car (or bike, which doesn’t work in the ice).

I guess you could ask school to open and have voluntary attendance for teachers and kids, and then it’s not actually an instructional day, just a babysitting day.

But that is OK. If you can't come in, can some of the kids and some of the teachers who live nearby still go to work? This is how I grew up.

Why is it a baby sitting day? If the music teacher can go, they learn music. But not French. It is still a meaningful day.

Oh my God tell me you have no idea how operating a school and teaching a class works without telling me you have no idea how operating a school and teaching a class works.

Multiple classes will be combined because many teachers are out. The teacher can’t progress in the curriculum because half the class is out and the kids who are in are all mixed together from different classes. And a some catch all enrichment that requires no background knowledge from the curriculum is just babysitting.

But I don't recall schools ever closing for this long in Massachusetts. It snows very often. What about Canada?

Yeah, I used to live in Michigan. They have significantly better and more expensive plows, treatments that perform better in lower temps, and heated buses. It’s also a lot flatter then. Schools still close, but it’s usually related to specifically ice (which is what we’re dealing with now).

But also schools have closed for a full week for weather around here since I was a kid. Happened with every big storm. If you want schools to open sooner, push for higher taxes and more sophisticated and plentiful plows and supplies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will be Thursday to those still losing it. I believe most privates will be virtual Wednesday. Line up child care if you are going to be crying. A little bird told me this info 🕊️

Our private (NW DC) does NOT do virtual learning. You sure about that bird?

Holy 2019, Batman!

[Anonymous]

No chance for tomorrow with temps like this. We are set to go online tomorrow though.

[Anonymous]

There is no reason schools can't open tomorrow. Teenagers have been out driving around to each others houses. This was fun but time to go back to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no reason schools can't open tomorrow. Teenagers have been out driving around to each others houses. This was fun but time to go back to school.

Who is letting their teen drive in these road conditions? We can’t even get out of our driveway.

[Anonymous]

Where? My road is untouched ice sheet not one person has left the neighborhood because we can’t. Fairfax county and work in dc. how do you think people are getting there? Lucky you live near a main road lots of us don’t and have seen no plows in our neighborhoods. Schools need workers to function.

[Anonymous]

Are some schools having virtual live classes? Our school is posting work online. Studies were done that meeting asynchronously was not effective at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no reason schools can't open tomorrow. Teenagers have been out driving around to each others houses. This was fun but time to go back to school.

lol sounds like Aiden and Caiden fired up the 100k suv from the garage and left there NW dc mansion and all is fine. Let’s go people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously? School might be closed for a week. Your kid will survive.

They will survive. But it is neither necessary nor very disruptive. Why can't attendance and stuff be optional?

Usually because there are safety issues for teachers and staff getting to school. If I were a teacher, I literally would not be able to come in. No plows on my road at all. Tried to get my car out and it got stuck. My neighborhood is accessible to metro only by car (or bike, which doesn’t work in the ice).

I guess you could ask school to open and have voluntary attendance for teachers and kids, and then it’s not actually an instructional day, just a babysitting day.

But that is OK. If you can't come in, can some of the kids and some of the teachers who live nearby still go to work? This is how I grew up.

My guess is none of the teachers at my kid's school would be able to afford to live within walking distance. Teaching isn't a well paid field.

[Anonymous]

Once again:

As the week goes on, remember what goes into consideration:
1) Is the campus cleared, safe and operational?
2) Are families able to safely get the students to the school?
3) Are the teachers, who may be coming from an hour away, able to safely get to the school?

I was out driving around DC last night. Major roads are passable but not clear. It’s not driving as usual. Another day of snow clearing could make a big difference, but two more days of it will make an even bigger difference which means don’t expect to be at school on Wednesday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are some schools having virtual live classes? Our school is posting work online. Studies were done that meeting asynchronously was not effective at all.

Many schools have a day or two of asynchronous before shifting to synchronous/live learning. The transition is important.