I was responding to people saying they didn’t remember what they did in school. I never said I didn’t appreciate snow days. Calm down. We all appreciate the snow days. |
There is nothing stopping parents from incorporating ELA, math, science, social studies, and world languages into these activities. I always did it with my kids because we were poor. Actually poor, not DCUM low six figures “poor”. We did math (ratios) and chemistry while baking. Social studies, world languages, and ELA while watching classic films. Physics while shoveling or playing in the snow. What’s more, most of their friends’ families also did this. Kids kept learning and they didn’t get bored. We interspersed this with indoor games and just talking to each other. My kids loved hearing about my childhood or their babyhood and I loved hearing whatever they thought about the world or daydreamed for the future. During the big shutdown in 2009, virtual learning was not an option. We researched American Samoa and spent three days “vacationing” there in our basement in Silver Spring. |
Most people aren’t intellectually curious and don’t care about their kid being educated. They just want them to go to a good college so they can get a job that makes them a lot of money. That’s the sad truth. So they aren’t going to take the initiative to create an enriching environment at home. |
| I went for a drive around my neighborhood and one street, in particular, is worse today than it was 2 days ago when I last checked. Apparently, several people dug their cars out from the sides of this 2 lane road with yellow lines that only had one lane cleared down the middle. They shoveled the snow onto the area that was plowed. It melted in yesterday's sun and has refrozen into solid ice and is impassable. |
On a normal day, cars and school busses dropping off kids at my school hold up traffic in four directions because people are impatient and too arrogant to follow directions from school staff and crossing guards. We’ve had accidents foul up the kiss and ride for 30 minutes and parents drive the wrong way through the staff parking lot to avoid waiting in the car line and then looping through the neighborhood. Add icy sidewalks so kids are walking in the streets and someone is going to get hurt. |
| Just drove by seven locks es and the student drop off lot is still untouched. Can other people report what they're seeing at their local schools here? Yesterday it mentioned only 30 percent of schools were done. Like WHAT?! |
Maybe it's time for community to come to the rescue. If one parent of every enrolled child at a school showed up with their ice pick and snow shovel, the parking lots and sidewalks of all schools could be completed in a few hours. Yes, some families have 2 kids enrolled at a school and an infant at home so only 1 parent for 2 students could show up. And yes, there are single parent households with kids in both ES and MS so they shouldn't have to shovel 2x. And I'm sure there are families with multiple children and one parent who has to go to work and cannot help. My point is, maybe the parents who want kids back in school need to take control. Volunteers could get this done quickly. Many hands makes light work. |
It's 10 inches of solid ice at this point. We could show up with a shovel and ice pick and we wouldn't be done in 8 plus hours. The entire student drop off lot and loop are untouched. I'm in no hurry for the kids to go back. I was just sharing observations of the status of snow removal operations. |
“The parents who want kids back in school” — shouldn’t that be all parents? |
Some of us are more patient than others. Some of us aren’t foaming at the mouth waiting for school to reopen, no. |
Describing wanting your kid to go to school as “foaming at the mouth” is … a choice. |
I think it was clear that I intended that description to apply to a subset of angry parents who are livid with MCPS for not reopening yet. |
Some of us are physically unable to do this...sure it would be nice, but it's not possible. |
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I’m from New England and would have no problem having my kid walk to school on snowy sidewalks. These are icy sidewalks and much more dangerous. I’m not going to let my elementary school kids walk to school in the street, where in our neighborhood at least, it is clear.
They should not reopen until people can shovel their sidewalks. It’s a solid brick of ice right now, and it’s clear people won’t be able to do that until it warms up. |
CWG said some of these snow banks could be here until March. You cool with waiting that long? |