Weather Related School Closures
- Thread starter Jdeere562
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Hermann
Site Donor 2023
Around here they close for trivial amounts of snow. They closed for the -35°F wind chill warnings a few days ago. I think it is a CYA issue for the school districts. No frozen kiddies at the bus stop is a good thing. But a 2" snowfall is no reason. It's 10° today with a stiff 20 mph wind. Just went out for mail with a Hanes Beefy T, a Hanes long sleeve T-Shirt with a sweatshirt on top. Chilled to the bone in 45 seconds. Winter winter go away.
Here in Michigan, the state mandates a specific number of hours (1,098 hours) and days (180 days) students must be in school.
To count as an "instructional day", district wide attendance must be 75%.
If a district expects more than 25% of their students are going to stay home because of the weather, they may as well call a snow day because they'll be making that day up at the end of the year anyway. A limited number of snow days are "forgiven" and not required to be made up at the end of the year.
In my particular neck of the woods, there is generally broad agreement by superintendents from different districts to call snow days at the same time. Some schools don't have any bussing and weather tends to affect their attendance more than districts that do. If a non-bussing district calls for a snow day, parents from neighboring districts (that maybe do have bussing) will often choose to keep their kids home: "Why does my child's district care less about safety than other districts? If it's bad enough for a district 3 miles away to call a snow day, I'm keeping my child home too." This can create a situation where even open districts fall below that 75% threshold.
NWS reports are also provide a lot of guidance. A warning of any type (winter storm warning, wind chill warning, ice storm warning) will almost always result in no school. Other weather advisories really depend on situation.
Source: My wife is an elementary teacher (and loves snow days as much as her students).
To count as an "instructional day", district wide attendance must be 75%.
If a district expects more than 25% of their students are going to stay home because of the weather, they may as well call a snow day because they'll be making that day up at the end of the year anyway. A limited number of snow days are "forgiven" and not required to be made up at the end of the year.
In my particular neck of the woods, there is generally broad agreement by superintendents from different districts to call snow days at the same time. Some schools don't have any bussing and weather tends to affect their attendance more than districts that do. If a non-bussing district calls for a snow day, parents from neighboring districts (that maybe do have bussing) will often choose to keep their kids home: "Why does my child's district care less about safety than other districts? If it's bad enough for a district 3 miles away to call a snow day, I'm keeping my child home too." This can create a situation where even open districts fall below that 75% threshold.
NWS reports are also provide a lot of guidance. A warning of any type (winter storm warning, wind chill warning, ice storm warning) will almost always result in no school. Other weather advisories really depend on situation.
Source: My wife is an elementary teacher (and loves snow days as much as her students).
College campuses have snowflakes year 'round.
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More than once the weather services and local media act like hell is going to freeze over overnight and through the next day and we've had school announce they're closing the following day -- and do this at 7, 8, 9 pm. Wake up in the morning, nothing.... but it's already been cancelled so they can't undo it. Around here, the weather people's track record is really, really bad so doing anything based on their guessing, errrr, I mean "forecasting", is asking for trouble !
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We've had 5 school days this year so far since coming back from school break. 2 the first week, 1 last week, and 2 this week. lol
Barefoot, hungry, and cold or hot.I remember when I was a kid we had to walk 3 miles to school up hill both ways.
What a time to live!
My mom got us to wear our PJ's inside out and flush ice cubes down the toilet when she thought tomorrow would be a snow day.
AutoMechanic
Site Donor 2024
When I was in school we had lots of closures. I loved it. But it was the days before the virtual stuff. We were given 5 days a year before make up days were required. If we didn’t use any snow days or didn’t use all of them then we had days taken off the school year at the end of the year. I’m glad we didn’t do virtual though. I can’t learn anything by looking at a computer screen all day. One time I slipped and fell on ice at the school and man it hurt. After that they were really good about closing. It all depends on the superintendent. We had three all the time I was in school the first one was really good the second one was too the third and still current was meh but then got good once I fell.
Tuesday & Wednesday off due to negative windchills.
Yeah that may have happened…
Real deal… my sister got her foot injured in a school bus accident when we had a small snowstorm when I was in 2nd grade. My mom was NOT pleased… School bus went off the road and into a rather deep ditch . No lawsuit or anything like that… I think my mom did call to the school board administration office to complain a good bit.
Well in my 4th grade year we had a snowstorm hit the day after the Super Bowl that the Chicago Bears won 46-10. We had about 3.5 inches of snow that Monday. Which that was a surprise storm too. Well the next am every county around Gloucester was closed… Mathews east of us , Middlesex north of us, King and Queen county west of us including York Academy which is in King and Queen county west of us closed has well, York county south of us.
My mom was HOT and she’s as like Hell no you all aren’t going nowhere. Those idiots at Gloucester are just stupid. She remembered very, very well what had taken place 2 years before. Well finally at 800 Gloucester had finally decided to close for the day. Well our family friend Mrs. L worked in one of the elementary schools and she had heard only 30 high schoolers showed up 730-745 there. That school had 1000 students at that time… So that was a massive number 1 salute to the school administration by the county residents for not closing the schools that day…
We did not cancel Tuesday when balance of state did . We got 6”+(expected 3”) and buses were stuck and HS kids struggled who drove coming home.
Weather has been pretty nice since summer. I don't think any schools have been closed.
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