Today is the 3rd snow day of this school year, and the second one this week. The first one (at the end of December) may have been valid and today's "snow/ice" day may have been valid because no one knows how to drive on ice around here. However, yesterday's "snow" day was just infuriating. My school canceled the school day on the mere prediction that there would be a horrible snowstorm all day. After I had dragged myself out of bed and gotten in the shower, my phone rang and I knew that meant school would probably be canceled. Was it snowing yesterday when I got out of the shower and listened to the message telling me that indeed school would be canceled? No. After blow drying my hair and then deciding to go back to sleep, had it snowed at all by the time I woke up at noon? No. Did it snow at all before school would have gotten out at 3pm? No. For that matter, did it snow in anyway whatsoever that would have inhibited us from attending school yesterday? NO!!! Why did they cancel school then? They canceled school based on mere blind trust in the weather meteorologists to actually come through on their weather prediction of 1-3 inches of snow. Ridiculous! Yesterday, I sat at home fuming because I never actually saw any snow come out of the sky until well after dark.
Now, you might be wondering: "Why would you be so upset that you didn't have to go to school to teach your kids yesterday (and today)?" Well, the first truthful answer to that question is that we have to make-up every snow day some other time in the year. Our first three snow days will be made-up during every day off that we have in April. With no days off, April and May are going to be two treacherously long months. The second answer to this question is that, if we have fourth or fifth snow days, we have to make up the school days on SATURDAYS. You might not think this is a big deal, but trust me, 5 days in a row with kids is enough. Sometimes 4 days is enough, so 6 days in a row is entirely too much. For my third reason, I believe that no snow day should be taken preemptively, i.e. "Oh! It might snow; we must cancel school!"
Therefore, based on the fact that yesterday was an unnecessary snow day, which our administration made us take part in, I think they shouldn't make us use one of our snow days to make it up. How many parents do you think had a conniption yesterday because they had to find daycare for their kids, even though there was no inclement weather to necessitate such an action?! I imagine there were many furious parents. I am sure there were quite a few furious teachers and students as well.
It was hard enough to get back into the swing of things last week, the first week back from Winter Break. The first week back is always a trying week for teachers--getting the students back into school mode where they have to behave and pay attention for 6 hours every day. Now, this week will be a waste with two days already gone. It'll be like pulling out teeth to get the kids to be back on track again, and then we'll have a long weekend for MLK day so next week will be an unusual week too. It's not good for the kids to be out of the school routine, and so far, January is not looking promising for getting the kids back into the "swing of school." I just hope we will be back to school tomorrow!
I'm going to go take some pictures now. Maybe I'll finally post pictures of my new place. I'll post pictures of my new bike too. I guess snow days are good for one thing: updating my blog. :)
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