When I grew up

[conuly]

NYC didn't cancel school for anything. Godzilla could be roaming the streets, and schools would still be open. Sure, sometimes students stayed home anyway - but we got a lot more snow then than we do now anyway, so whatever.

With that in mind, I take a rather jaundiced look at closing schools for a predicted 5 - 8 inches of snow. Even if we had gotten a full 8 inches of snow, which we didn't, a delayed opening would've been more than sufficient. What about kids who only eat three full meals every day because schools are open? What about little kids whose parents still need to work? This is a hardship on their families, and utterly unnecessary.

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Comments

[mummimamma]

I don't get the thing with snow days. Unless you live a place where things like snow is really, really rare and you expect a blizzard, shouldn't the infrastructure be prepared to handle the snow?

[alexcat]

We always got out for snow... any amount. I live in rural NC and even thought snow and ice are not rare, there are not enough snowplows and such to take care of it. We actually get snowed in here for days at a time even now.

[conuly]

The NYC infrastructure IS prepared to handle this amount of snow.

[mummimamma]

And they still have snow days? That really doesn't make any sense. Unless they belive they can save money in some way of course?

[conuly]

Hence my complaint. Even a school delay would have been unnecessary, but it would've been better than no school at all.

[conuly]

Right, that's North Carolina. This is NYC.

[lilysea]

Is it because the school buses are not safe with snowy roads?
No seatbelts on the bus?
No snow chains on the tyres?

[conuly]

The roads were fully plowed by 7am.

[thekumquat]

Do they have minimum staff ratios in NYC? When I was at school, it meant 100 of us doing some activity with one or two staff who had made it in, but now nurseries and schools may have to close because if they can't guarantee enough staff to be open legally, they can't be open.

Staff often come from further afield than the kids so may be unable to travel when the kids just walk. This was dinned into me after the time I took half an hour to get Quatlet to nursery (a 10-min walk, normally) in the snow, suddenly feared nursery might not be open, and got there to find the manager with three kids which meant she couldn't take him as well. Luckily another staff member showed up by the time she'd explained, and the four toddlers and two adults had a great day.

Similarly, schools have to close if they think too many staff will be on strike to open the school.

[notasupervillain]

One year my husband's university did not close for snow. But the other university, which was three blocks away from his, did close for snow. There were a lot of jokes about how snow piles up to the west.

[kengr]

One thing to remember is what one of the local TV meteorologists always reminds people.

The school district has to make those decisions *hours* in advance. Like 3-5 am.

That's so they can contact people and tell them not to come in, and get the word out to the radio & tv stations.

In most places if staff comes in and then gets sent home, you have to pay them for the full shift. That gets *real* expensive.

So they are generally going to err on the side of "if it might be too snowy or they might not have the roads cleared....

Also, these days they have to be more worried about not just risks to the kids, but risks of getting *sued* if there's accident that they "could have" prevented by cancelling school.

[conuly]

They made the decision not at 3am, but at perhaps 8pm the day before. Edit: And the snow at that time wasn't so much that it was reasonable to think that we'd certainly hit 8 inches by rush hour.

The justification is that we'd rather call it early so parents can plan, which is fair - but if the estimate is for 5 - 8 inches, snow tapering off by morning, then a delayed opening is what's called for.

[tielan]

In most places if staff comes in and then gets sent home, you have to pay them for the full shift. That gets *real* expensive.

Okay, I don't get this. Shouldn't they have the budget for all staff for all days of the working year? If they've done a budget properly, then surely their actual costs wouldn't be any more if they called staff in as usual, then had to send them home - although it might be less if they called a snow day.

[hamimi_fk]

As a NYer and the one who has to wake up at 6:30am and take my son and nephew to school, I'm content with snow days. I mean the school is 5 blocks away but I've never given up on my fondness for not waking up so early. 😀

[kengr]

Remember, schools have to "make up" the snow days. That is, the schools are required to have a certain number of days of clasess every year. So they have to add days at what would have been the end of the school year to replace the snow days.

[sarahthecoat]

that would be my guess too. In the olden days when we were little, the teachers could more afford to live in the towns/neighborhoods where they worked, or at least close, one or two towns away. That is much less the case now, especially in more expensive cities and towns. It can be a major issue in the suburbs as well.
I grew up in New England, where we have the equipment,but we still had snow days, especially if the snow was anticipated during the morning commute. It's just a lot easier/safer for the plows to do their job if the roads aren't full of cars, not all of which know how to handle the roads. Again, way more people don't live in places where they grew up, and way more people can't afford to have a second set of winter tires for their cars. There are just way more people (and cars) than there were 50 years ago, too, and that also increases the risk of tangling with an idiot. I have been in weather related accidents, and the takeaway for me was, easily preventable by rescheduling (I'm not a medical, first responder, or DPW worker). Not worth my safety, my car (also more expensive now than 50years ago) or my insurance rates, to go to one day of work, or errands, or whatever.
I also heartily approve of businesses and schools closing early BEFORE the roads get bad, I remember the phase when they waited until the roads were bad and then closed early, dumping rush hour onto really bad roads. The first hour is always the worst, before the sanding trucks have made the rounds.

[tielan]

See, I didn't know that in the first place. We don't have snow days where I am, so I imagined it's like a 'sick day' at work - simply a lost day of productivity that's pretty much unavoidable.

Obviously, it being education, that's not acceptable, so choosing to call the day off earlier rather than later makes sense.

[conuly]

In a well-designed calendar you have a good guess as to how many snow days you'll have and so you have a. given yourself more days than you are legally required to have (say, 185 when the law requires 180, with the understanding that if you don't use up those snow days the teachers will either teach or use those days for movies) and b. scheduled in a few holidays in the last month of school that you can skip if necessary. Because NOBODY wants to be there past the last scheduled week, but they'll suck it up and come in on that day that ought to have been a random day off.

[conuly]

How old are son and nephew?

[conuly]

That's... a possibility. However, I still maintain that even under those conditions a delayed opening probably would've been the best bet.

[chelseagirl]

We had a delayed opening, so I had to schlepp out to New Jersey, and it was NOT snowpocalypsey at all. I think everyone's overreacting to the November disaster.

[hamimi_fk]

Son is 7, nephew is 5. Smol boys also like snow days, for possibly a different reason, lol.

[baronessekat]

I get the snow day frustration. I live and grew up in Buffalo, NY. We ONLY closed for snow. in the last 10+ years I have noticed a rise in "wind chill days". We never closed because of the wind chill, if the buses could run, we were expected to go to school - which meant waiting in the often negative degree cold until it came.

I honestly dont' know what I think of it.

[zesty_pinto]

I'm surprised schools are willing to close. In all honesty, I hated those days when it snowed and NYC schools always had me trudging through weather I hated. In all honesty, the worst days were the ones when the snow melted and then refroze into a glaze. Those days should have had school canceled in my opinion just because nothing you wore over there could have prepared you for those conditions. Even in VT when the sidewalks glaze like that you can see people slipping and falling.

[conuly]

Different mayors, different rules.