To Send or Not to Send?
When I first get up in the mornings, I grab a cup of coffee and sit down at the computer before I wake the grandchildren up for school. This morning I caught a County 911 message on Facebook about a winter weather advisory. What? I jumped up to turn on the television and look outside.
Sure enough, sleet and freezing rain was falling and the news was scrolling school closing across the bottom of the screen and talking about accidents. Yikes! I watched for a minute but our school was not listed so I went to wake the kids. While trying to get them fully awake, I ran back and forth watching for a school closing. None came.
So, outside I went, to chip ice from the windshield so I could drive them to the bus stop, worrying the entire time. Surely, they will cancel instead of sending busses out on the roads! If I just didn’t send them, it would be an unexcused absence since the school makes the call on if the roads are safe or not.
Yes, they had school. The bus was nearly ten minutes late and it took them a lot longer to get to school. I know because my granddaughter was texting me with a progress report. I find it irritating that a parent is not allowed to decide if the roads are safe or not. The superintendent of schools takes a drive and makes the decision.
Photo credit: Morguefile / rawnsr1 http://mrg.bz/UWqM1Y
school / winterweather / schoolclosings / schoolbuses
Image Credit » Morguefile / rawnsr1 http://mrg.bz/UWqM1Y
Comments
maxeen wrote on December 1, 2014, 9:53 AM
it is a responsibility and I think it should be up to you to decide.Conditions can worsen by the time the inspecter gets elsewhere.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 9:53 AM
Yes I know I have spaces missing in "caught a County" but I have tried to edit twice now and it just gets worse! At first the space was just missing between a County. Can you help &elitexcode ?
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 9:54 AM
I agree, but if the super determines the roads are okay, then the kids get an "unexused" on their school records if they don't go.
melody23 wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:09 AM
We don't really get snow days here, there is never enough snow but I had to get a ferry to school every day so if the ferry wasn't running we couldn't get to school. Parents had a similar nightmare as you, did they send their children to school if the winds were high but the ferries were still on and risk that they might get stuck? Again it was counted as unauthorised absence if they did this, I had many unauthorised absences in winter.
melody23 wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:10 AM
Same thing is happening to me a lot recently, no matter how many times I edit, the spaces show fine in the text editor but when I post they disappear again. maybe Elitecodex can help us?
Ruby3881 wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:26 AM
I find schools have entirely too harsh an approach to attendance these days. My daughters can have straight A's, but lose an entire term's honour roll because they got sick and were absent three days, instead of the max of two. Even with a doctor's note and them having made up all work missed, they lose the entire term's credit for honour roll. And in some school districts the student will actually be failed for reaching an arbitrary number of absences regardless of his situation or the amount or quality of work done.
Ruby3881 wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:28 AM
I think the parents ought to make such decisions. I've come across similar situations in our old school district, but when the kids were in elementary school and a large number of parents made that choice to keep their kids home, the admin never interfered. They'd simply "discourage" parents from keeping kids home unless the board declared a snow day.
Feisty56 wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:36 AM
With the strict absence policies many of the schools have these days, it feels as if parents and grandparents have to make tough choices about sending kids to school, not only due to inclement weather, but symptoms of an oncoming illness and more.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:45 AM
Thanks for tagging him correctly melody23 I see I had it spelled wrong, lol. Yes, mine corrected in text editor but didn't on the article.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:47 AM
Back when my own kids went to school, I made the decisions! If the roads were not safe enough for me, I sure didn't put my kids on a bus.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 10:49 AM
I believe our honor roll too requires "perfect attendance." But! They close the schools down around here for the first day of deer hunting season so that the older kids can hunt with their family. makes no sense!
OldRoadsOnceTraveled wrote on December 1, 2014, 1:44 PM
I've had the same thing happen to me a few times, but I've always managed to fix it with an extra space. It took some fiddling, though.
OldRoadsOnceTraveled wrote on December 1, 2014, 1:50 PM
We don't get much snow in North Georgia outside of the mountains, and when we do, we don't have the equipment to handle a major storm. Our schools are usually very cautious, and often close or delay schools when the roads actually end up okay ... except on the day of the worst storm in years last winter. It was a nightmare. They dismissed too late. Kids were stuck on buses for hours. Some were even on buses overnight. Lots of other kids spent the night at school because it was too dangerous to take them home.
Kasman wrote on December 1, 2014, 4:31 PM
If your children were injured in an accident caused by the bad weather would there be a case for suing the school?
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 5:09 PM
I remember hearing about that storm! It would have been terrifying to know your children were stuck on a bus somewhere. I always worry about that as we have some very narrow country roads that it must travel on.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 5:16 PM
That is a question I hope to never have to find out the answer to. I do worry about accidents though.
AngelSharum wrote on December 1, 2014, 7:08 PM
I hope all the kids made it to school and back home safely.
bestwriter wrote on December 1, 2014, 7:46 PM
How will the superintendent of schools know exactly how bad the roads are is a question here.
scheng1 wrote on December 1, 2014, 8:43 PM
If the students get to school safely, this shows the school makes the right call.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 1, 2014, 8:49 PM
When I called the school because their bus was over 10 minutes late, the person that answered said, "Well the roads are pretty slick you know." That should have been a clue!
elitecodex wrote on December 1, 2014, 9:46 PM
Interestingly I just copied that entire first paragraph and saved it as a draft, then went back to edit it (with spaces) and it allowed me to do that with no problems. I still haven't been able to replicate this issue... it is very strange. This is one of those times I wish I could reach into your computer and take a look. Hard to fix issues I can't reproduce :)
OldRoadsOnceTraveled wrote on December 1, 2014, 9:58 PM
I have a friend who drove a school bus, and he and one of his load of students spent several hours stuck in a ditch.
momathome wrote on December 4, 2014, 11:52 PM
That is one of those things that I, thankfully, no longer have to worry about. Since the kids attend online from home, I never have to worry about what the weather/roads are like.
Donna_Thacker wrote on December 5, 2014, 9:11 AM
I have considered that but since they are grandchildren it is not my decision to make so I just worry, lol.
momathome wrote on December 12, 2014, 6:20 PM
Donna_Thacker I can understand that one. I know that for me, since I was able to do it, it took a lot of stress off me.