Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go in late, telecommute, ask your husband to handle it, pay someone, carpool, etc.

You are a bad parent if you make your kids walk.

Actually you are a bad parent for driving them. How coddling can we be to make our kids so entitled and lazy. Wrap them up like Ralphy’s mom did in Christmas Story and send them on their way. These kids are desperate for exercise. You starting up and heating the car to drive to the bus stop or the school is obnoxious. Only this generation of parents think cold air is unsafe. How have the Canadians not all died of hypothermia yet?

The mommies driving kids about 7 houses to the bus stop, only to turn around to drive BACK the 7 houses back home again, are ridiculous. Do you remember a bunch of cars idling at your bus stop as a kid?

Yes! There's a bunch of cars lined up at the bus stop all winter long and whenever it rains throughout the year. One of those cars is my next door neighbor, I live 4 houses away from the stop! I walk my kid to the bus stop as I walk the dog, no matter the weather and there are 5th graders sitting in cars, unable to walk 5-10 houses distance in the cold apparently. Ridiculous. Kids are dressed head to toe in Under Armour, I'm sure they can afford umbrellas for rain and appropriate winter apparels.

We have a lot of cars at the bus stop, but I think most of the parents leave straight from the stop for work. I walk my kids because they prefer it. I would prefer to drive because then I could leave straight from the stop but it actually takes us longer to drive to the stop than to walk. Anyway, umbrellas are not allowed on our MCPS ES school bus. Parent must take the umbrella if kid has one when kid gets on the bus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go in late, telecommute, ask your husband to handle it, pay someone, carpool, etc.

You are a bad parent if you make your kids walk.

Funny, I feel like I'm a bad parent because I DON'T always make my kid walk. With a large musical instrument, backpack, and 4" binder, I frequently cave and drop them at the bus stop on my way to work instead of making them walk the 1/2 mile uphill. And I feel a little guilty every time I do, like I'm failing to instill something in them. But I do make them walk on non-band days, at least.

You're a bad parent for not insisting that they play flute or clarinet, only.

Anonymous wrote:Go in late, telecommute, ask your husband to handle it, pay someone, carpool, etc.

You are a bad parent if you make your kids walk.

Funny, I feel like I'm a bad parent because I DON'T always make my kid walk. With a large musical instrument, backpack, and 4" binder, I frequently cave and drop them at the bus stop on my way to work instead of making them walk the 1/2 mile uphill. And I feel a little guilty every time I do, like I'm failing to instill something in them. But I do make them walk on non-band days, at least.

Anonymous wrote:In checking the websites of a few Canadian school districts, it appears that what they do in extreme cold is keep their schools open but cancel busing.

We are talking about MUCH colder temps for this to happen in Canada.

"Parent's discretion" means that the school principal is refusing to make the decision to close the school. In this situation responsibility then falls on the parents to decide if it is safe to send their children and teenagers to school in the cold weather. This usually happens when the temperature or wind chill equivalent is expected to be in or near the range of -35 to -40 degrees Celsius.


That is -30 degrees F.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In checking the websites of a few Canadian school districts, it appears that what they do in extreme cold is keep their schools open but cancel busing.

Try that here and see how it goes over.

Excellent idea. Parents will learn to carpool and get their kids safely in the warm school buildings.

Or older kids will just skip school and traffic will reach horrific levels around elementary schools.

Anonymous wrote:In checking the websites of a few Canadian school districts, it appears that what they do in extreme cold is keep their schools open but cancel busing.

Try that here and see how it goes over.

Excellent idea. Parents will learn to carpool and get their kids safely in the warm school buildings.

The frustrating thing about today is that it's a temperature issue rather than an icy roads issue. I think they should be handled differently, because there are no direct safety issues with normal start time on very cold days.

Here's my idea. On 2 hour delayed starts, school staff (or selected school staff) should be asked to report on time. School administrators can handle this as they'd like to (liberal leave for teachers/staff who need it). School doors open as usual and kids are corralled in the gym/library/cafeteria etc. until the start of school. This is exactly what happens on a normal day (for ES and MS), except the period of corralling would be up to 2 hours instead of 40 minutes. Enough teachers would be on hand to keep things under control.

After the first year of doing it this way, the school would get a sense of how many teachers/staff they would need on hand based on the number of kids who arrive. Probably more in some schools than others. And they could use a rotation or whatever method they want to staff the normal arrival period.

This would make it safer for all kids, because parents would choose the safer option for them. And if not so many kids are in need of the early drop off option, most of the teachers could use the two hours as a planning period.

Anonymous wrote:Even Chicagoans who are use to snowy winters and lake effect snow don’t have school in this cold. Depends on what you are use to. No one around here is use to 12f.

You are really out of touch with what is happening in the Midwest if you think it’s at all comparable to here. It 40-50 degrees colder there, meaning no matter how accustomed to the cold you are, you will get frostbite on exposed skin if you’re out for five minutes. Life threanting cold there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How come DCPS was open yesterday and today on time. Those kids are walking to school in the dark

Because in DC, all kids are walkers and are fairly close to their schools. And, likely get their meals at school. In mcps, kids walk two miles to High School, 1.5 miles to middle school, and a mile to elementary school. In this cold, with some kids not having proper cold weather gear, it's not appropriate.

Get over yourself, and think about others for once.

Those are the distance limits for the walk zone. I wonder how many kids there are who actually do this.

This is not true. In DC, only something like 25% of kids across the city attend their in-boundary school. They're either getting driven or taking public transportation.

In DCPS?

No, I was addressing the immediate PP, who referenced DC, not DCPS specifically.

In this article, they say the average commute is 0.6 miles for elementary students and 1.8 miles for high school students in DCPS.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/many-dc-public-school-students-travel-less-than-a-mile-to-school/2015/05/12/0dcecfa8-f80e-11e4-a13c-193b1241d51a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c511b79a3fde

However, that only tells part of the story, since about half of DC's public school students are in charter schools. Further, many others are in privates.

For the average commute time by neighborhood for all students, see the interactive map "How Commutes Differ among Students in DC's Eight Wards." The average commute not bad for Ward 3--for example, 9 min for the average 6th grader in Ward 3--but is longer for EOTP/EOTR neighborhoods, where more students are in charters and further away from top-ranked traditional public schools. The data are from 2013-2014; not sure how commutes may have changed since then.

https://apps.urban.org/features/school-transportation/?utm_source=EA&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=transportationandschoolchoice&utm_content=r

As for closures, when DCPS closes, many charters follow suit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How come DCPS was open yesterday and today on time. Those kids are walking to school in the dark

Because in DC, all kids are walkers and are fairly close to their schools. And, likely get their meals at school. In mcps, kids walk two miles to High School, 1.5 miles to middle school, and a mile to elementary school. In this cold, with some kids not having proper cold weather gear, it's not appropriate.

Get over yourself, and think about others for once.

Those are the distance limits for the walk zone. I wonder how many kids there are who actually do this.

This is not true. In DC, only something like 25% of kids across the city attend their in-boundary school. They're either getting driven or taking public transportation.

In DCPS?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How come DCPS was open yesterday and today on time. Those kids are walking to school in the dark

Because in DC, all kids are walkers and are fairly close to their schools. And, likely get their meals at school. In mcps, kids walk two miles to High School, 1.5 miles to middle school, and a mile to elementary school. In this cold, with some kids not having proper cold weather gear, it's not appropriate.

Get over yourself, and think about others for once.

Those are the distance limits for the walk zone. I wonder how many kids there are who actually do this.

This is not true. In DC, only something like 25% of kids across the city attend their in-boundary school. They're either getting driven or taking public transportation.

Anonymous wrote:Parents typically have a plan to get their kids to school securely on regular days. With two hour delays, I can't possibly stay home that late so my kids will be walking instead of getting a warm ride to school. I've been scrambling trying to find families to drop them off with for a ride to school, and the other parents are citing the same problems that I have!

I don't know the percentages, but certainly a two hour delay puts a lot of kids out in the cold--- my guess would be more in the cold with a delay than with a regular start time.

OP, email your concerns to BOE@mcpsmd.org

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How come DCPS was open yesterday and today on time. Those kids are walking to school in the dark

Because in DC, all kids are walkers and are fairly close to their schools. And, likely get their meals at school. In mcps, kids walk two miles to High School, 1.5 miles to middle school, and a mile to elementary school. In this cold, with some kids not having proper cold weather gear, it's not appropriate.

Get over yourself, and think about others for once.

Those are the distance limits for the walk zone. I wonder how many kids there are who actually do this.

Anonymous wrote:How come DCPS was open yesterday and today on time. Those kids are walking to school in the dark

no school buses in DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go in late, telecommute, ask your husband to handle it, pay someone, carpool, etc.

You are a bad parent if you make your kids walk.

You’re such a loser.

I’m not OP but she’s a “bad parent” if she has to work and her kids have to walk? Go to hell. You’re an anonymous troll spewing negative crap at strangers; I’m sure you’re a happy and fulfilled person.

OP is making the point she’s in a jam. Also millions of kids in vast swaths of the world have walked outside at 15 degrees with no issue. Sorry your precious snowflakes are soft as puppy sh$t.

Overnight low is 2F where I am. I have to agree with pp that if you let your kid walk tomorrow morning, I think you meet the “bad parent” criteria.

Just FYI, DCPS schools opened on time today. We live 1/2 mile from MoCo, and many kids walk to school or take public transit. I guess we're all bad parents in DC.