Can you believe we are going on time tomorrow? It is not safe. Trust me, my family has been all around town this weekend running errands, sledding, seeing friends, and it’s still slick. So trust me I know. I haven’t been just sitting at home. I’ve been out doing normal activities. We need another snow day or at least a late start. Reid has caved to the crazy parents that don’t want their kids at home. SMH.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/01/in-va-crews-work-to-make-neighborhood-streets-passable-instead-of-clear/

The standard for side streets is that an emergency vehicle can get through, not clear to pavement.

Thank you for posting this. So many people are screaming about their streets "not being plowed," but they mostly certainly have been plowed... once or twice on Mon or Tues, leaving behind a layer of packed snow and ice that kept refreezing. That's what always happens on lightly traveled subdivision roads with unusually cold Jan temps.

Yes, this! The roads have been plowed but VDOT never promised to plow to bare asphalt. Maybe that’s not good enough but that’s what the current rule is. The truth is we usually warm up and it melts in a day or two. It’s not that VDOT did better in the past.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bus drivers had difficulty in 22101. It is awful they were put in a position to have to drop kids off on 123 (over 1.5 miles from home) because the neighborhoods were too icey to navigate.

This is our situation, glad I didn't send my kids to walk on icy roads with no sidewalks for a mile to get home.

Yet many kids did walk a mile on roads and icy sidewalks to get to/from school yesterday. And they managed just fine. I'm a teacher (HS), and my classes were mostly full, with about 1 or 2 absences per class. I would argue that you should be allowing (and even pushing/encouraging) your kids out into the world to take risks and overcome challenges. Walking on icy sidewalks? Watching the cars/traffic carefully? Yes, these type of situations should be navigated from time to time as kids grow through the years. Do not bubble-wrap your kids. You are not doing them any favors.

Oh.. I hope all these children who walked on icy roads dodging swerving cars for a mile and all these hero parents whose vehicles got stuck on icy unplowed roads near schools get a medal. I guess this is what you are looking for, but too bad, they won't. There will be no difference between those who showed up and those who didn't make it. There is no "winning" here, just people who found it easy enough to show up and those who chose not to deal with a PITA situation, e.g. people making choices based on personal circumstances. As a parent you can feel free to make choices for your kids like we do for ours, if you are even a parent.

Yet you seem crabby that teachers gave instruction and the class moved on, instead of waiting for your snowflake next week.

Teachers will have to reteach don;'t worry.

The dumbing down of America.

Republicans love the uneducated....

So how do you explain FCPS and it’s SB?

They know the difference between it’s and its, for one thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bus drivers had difficulty in 22101. It is awful they were put in a position to have to drop kids off on 123 (over 1.5 miles from home) because the neighborhoods were too icey to navigate.

This is our situation, glad I didn't send my kids to walk on icy roads with no sidewalks for a mile to get home.

Yet many kids did walk a mile on roads and icy sidewalks to get to/from school yesterday. And they managed just fine. I'm a teacher (HS), and my classes were mostly full, with about 1 or 2 absences per class. I would argue that you should be allowing (and even pushing/encouraging) your kids out into the world to take risks and overcome challenges. Walking on icy sidewalks? Watching the cars/traffic carefully? Yes, these type of situations should be navigated from time to time as kids grow through the years. Do not bubble-wrap your kids. You are not doing them any favors.

Oh.. I hope all these children who walked on icy roads dodging swerving cars for a mile and all these hero parents whose vehicles got stuck on icy unplowed roads near schools get a medal. I guess this is what you are looking for, but too bad, they won't. There will be no difference between those who showed up and those who didn't make it. There is no "winning" here, just people who found it easy enough to show up and those who chose not to deal with a PITA situation, e.g. people making choices based on personal circumstances. As a parent you can feel free to make choices for your kids like we do for ours, if you are even a parent.

Yet you seem crabby that teachers gave instruction and the class moved on, instead of waiting for your snowflake next week.

Teachers will have to reteach don;'t worry.

The dumbing down of America.

Republicans love the uneducated....

So how do you explain FCPS and it’s SB?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/01/in-va-crews-work-to-make-neighborhood-streets-passable-instead-of-clear/

The standard for side streets is that an emergency vehicle can get through, not clear to pavement.

Thank you for posting this. So many people are screaming about their streets "not being plowed," but they mostly certainly have been plowed... once or twice on Mon or Tues, leaving behind a layer of packed snow and ice that kept refreezing. That's what always happens on lightly traveled subdivision roads with unusually cold Jan temps.

People start driving on our street as soon as it is plowed and I am pretty sure that the traffic helps to break up the snow pack over time. Yes, it compresses it, but the consistent driving breaks off chunks and causes it to spread out and break up. We ended up with one path that is pretty clear immediately after and pretty much clear by Wednesday afternoon, some ruts and the like, due to use of the street.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bus drivers had difficulty in 22101. It is awful they were put in a position to have to drop kids off on 123 (over 1.5 miles from home) because the neighborhoods were too icey to navigate.

This is our situation, glad I didn't send my kids to walk on icy roads with no sidewalks for a mile to get home.

Yet many kids did walk a mile on roads and icy sidewalks to get to/from school yesterday. And they managed just fine. I'm a teacher (HS), and my classes were mostly full, with about 1 or 2 absences per class. I would argue that you should be allowing (and even pushing/encouraging) your kids out into the world to take risks and overcome challenges. Walking on icy sidewalks? Watching the cars/traffic carefully? Yes, these type of situations should be navigated from time to time as kids grow through the years. Do not bubble-wrap your kids. You are not doing them any favors.

Oh.. I hope all these children who walked on icy roads dodging swerving cars for a mile and all these hero parents whose vehicles got stuck on icy unplowed roads near schools get a medal. I guess this is what you are looking for, but too bad, they won't. There will be no difference between those who showed up and those who didn't make it. There is no "winning" here, just people who found it easy enough to show up and those who chose not to deal with a PITA situation, e.g. people making choices based on personal circumstances. As a parent you can feel free to make choices for your kids like we do for ours, if you are even a parent.

Yet you seem crabby that teachers gave instruction and the class moved on, instead of waiting for your snowflake next week.

Teachers will have to reteach don;'t worry.

The dumbing down of America.

Republicans love the uneducated....

Anonymous wrote:https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/01/in-va-crews-work-to-make-neighborhood-streets-passable-instead-of-clear/

The standard for side streets is that an emergency vehicle can get through, not clear to pavement.

Thank you for posting this. So many people are screaming about their streets "not being plowed," but they mostly certainly have been plowed... once or twice on Mon or Tues, leaving behind a layer of packed snow and ice that kept refreezing. That's what always happens on lightly traveled subdivision roads with unusually cold Jan temps.

https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/01/in-va-crews-work-to-make-neighborhood-streets-passable-instead-of-clear/

The standard for side streets is that an emergency vehicle can get through, not clear to pavement.

Anonymous wrote:Our family was just talking about the jitters kids feel before going back after a break. I’m so glad they went Friday to get that out of the way.

Re attendance: My first grader has no idea how many kids were absent on Friday. My fifth grader had two classmates absent.

The transition after a break is always hard- nobody looks forward to that first day back. The kids and staff who went on Friday and ripped off that bandaid are going to feel a lot more at ease going back tomorrow compared to the kids who stayed home and are now jumping into a 5 day week after 3 weeks at home without the benefit of the shorter “ease in” day on Friday. Oh well.

Our family was just talking about the jitters kids feel before going back after a break. I’m so glad they went Friday to get that out of the way.

Re attendance: My first grader has no idea how many kids were absent on Friday. My fifth grader had two classmates absent.

4th grader said everyone was there. Glad they reopened to get new content going before next week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bus drivers had difficulty in 22101. It is awful they were put in a position to have to drop kids off on 123 (over 1.5 miles from home) because the neighborhoods were too icey to navigate.

This is our situation, glad I didn't send my kids to walk on icy roads with no sidewalks for a mile to get home.

Yet many kids did walk a mile on roads and icy sidewalks to get to/from school yesterday. And they managed just fine. I'm a teacher (HS), and my classes were mostly full, with about 1 or 2 absences per class. I would argue that you should be allowing (and even pushing/encouraging) your kids out into the world to take risks and overcome challenges. Walking on icy sidewalks? Watching the cars/traffic carefully? Yes, these type of situations should be navigated from time to time as kids grow through the years. Do not bubble-wrap your kids. You are not doing them any favors.

Oh.. I hope all these children who walked on icy roads dodging swerving cars for a mile and all these hero parents whose vehicles got stuck on icy unplowed roads near schools get a medal. I guess this is what you are looking for, but too bad, they won't. There will be no difference between those who showed up and those who didn't make it. There is no "winning" here, just people who found it easy enough to show up and those who chose not to deal with a PITA situation, e.g. people making choices based on personal circumstances. As a parent you can feel free to make choices for your kids like we do for ours, if you are even a parent.

PP here (the HS teacher).
No one is expecting medals. I am just cautioning parents against infantalizing their kids and not allowing/encouraging them to solve problems and take risks (e.g. walking a mile to school in the cold and ice). I have been teaching for over 25 years, and I do believe that the trend of over-protecting kids is damaging their mental health.

We have mostly walkers in my school and a high level of low income families and MLLs. I had a lot of kids out and my observation are they are the kids who have no car, low academically, and parents are not involved in school (I’ve never seen them, they don’t show up for conferences, won’t return calls, etc).

Needless to say I didn’t teach a lot of new lessons because I would have to repeat it all Monday since these are the kids who really need it and can’t just miss a lesson. So it was a mostly low key fun day.

Unfortunately our school struggles with chronic absenteeism so days like yesterday don’t help and I really really hope we have a normal day on Monday.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s funny that third graders are able to report that they learned “new material.” Mine had already forgotten everything he did today, per usual, by the time he ran off the bus…

My fourth grader said they didn’t start a new benchmark lesson but did learn something new in math.

My 3rd grader learned something new today and articulated it perfectly. But he’s AAP level 4.

WTF kind of flex is this supposed to be? Newsflash: the vast majority of 3rd graders can perfectly articulate what they did all day. Not sure why you think AAP makes your child special? He's either just better at taking tests or he's a high SES kid in a low SES school.

There was a mom claiming no 4th grader could articulate what they learned. I was just assuming that if that’s true, my kid is special. It seems you’re claiming her child is “special”. Either way.

OMG. There was one lady who jokingly said her kid doesn't tell her what happened at school and you took her seriously and then had to imply that because your child is in AAP he is much more articulate than other children his age, which as we all know is not true because AAP children are no different than other kids, even though you want to think that.

You need to reread. Your reading comprehension is 0/100. But your gen z lingo is A+, so you’ve got something going for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bus drivers had difficulty in 22101. It is awful they were put in a position to have to drop kids off on 123 (over 1.5 miles from home) because the neighborhoods were too icey to navigate.

This is our situation, glad I didn't send my kids to walk on icy roads with no sidewalks for a mile to get home.

Yet many kids did walk a mile on roads and icy sidewalks to get to/from school yesterday. And they managed just fine. I'm a teacher (HS), and my classes were mostly full, with about 1 or 2 absences per class. I would argue that you should be allowing (and even pushing/encouraging) your kids out into the world to take risks and overcome challenges. Walking on icy sidewalks? Watching the cars/traffic carefully? Yes, these type of situations should be navigated from time to time as kids grow through the years. Do not bubble-wrap your kids. You are not doing them any favors.

Oh.. I hope all these children who walked on icy roads dodging swerving cars for a mile and all these hero parents whose vehicles got stuck on icy unplowed roads near schools get a medal. I guess this is what you are looking for, but too bad, they won't. There will be no difference between those who showed up and those who didn't make it. There is no "winning" here, just people who found it easy enough to show up and those who chose not to deal with a PITA situation, e.g. people making choices based on personal circumstances. As a parent you can feel free to make choices for your kids like we do for ours, if you are even a parent.

Yet you seem crabby that teachers gave instruction and the class moved on, instead of waiting for your snowflake next week.

Teachers will have to reteach don;'t worry.

The dumbing down of America.