Baby, it's COLD outside!
As I write this, in my relatively warm house, with the temperature at -11°F out there, I’m reading a lot of pro and con comments on Facebook about the fact that DPS is not closed tomorrow, and I want to gather all your comments here.
I remember when I was a young single mother and my son was attending DPS. When school would close, it was incredibly difficult to find child care when my job didn’t also close. I remember having to take vacation time I sometimes didn’t have or even having my pay docked for having to stay home with him. He’s 25 now and gone from the nest, but I can still totally empathize with both sides of the debate.
At the same time, I worry about the kids in my district from cash-strapped families that may not have the resources to provide warm winter clothing. In an area with one of the highest foreclosure rates in Colorado, this is a real concern for me.
Some of the pro-snow day comments I’m getting are along the lines of the following:
Amazingly stupid on the part of the DPS to have kids waiting at their bus stops in a wind chill of minus 30. I think each administrator and board member should be out there waiting with them — and every thirty seconds, say “ho hum.”
I really don’t think that the majority of the admin know what most of these kids go to school in. Most can’t afford a heavy winter coat let alone gloves, hats, and even good shoes. I guess the admin offices have been overwhelmed with calls and declined to be interviewed by any news station.
On the other hand, the comments in favor of keeping school open are saying thing like:
I remember a winter when temps dropped below zero F and stayed like that for 3 weeks. The old furnace in my school broke and it was 35 degrees in the classroom. We moved all the desks away from the window and wore coats and gloves… Dear DPS this is not a disaster… Kids need to learn and people need to work.
DPS takes enough days off as it is for us working folks! yes its cold…put on some hats, gloves, scarfs and call it a day people!
The district just released this memo to staff:
All Denver Public Schools will be open on Wednesday, Feb. 2 for normal operating hours.
We are very concerned about the severely cold weather. Nevertheless, we expect road and traffic conditions tomorrow to have improved to the point to allow for buses to be fully operational, for our students to go to and from school safely, and for schools to be open to serve our students.
The district will be communicating this information to parents via email, an automated phone call, a posting on the district’s website, and a recorded message on the district’s main information number, 720-423-3200.
Also, the district will be adhering to revised tardy and absence policies tomorrow. DPS respects the judgment of parents in ensuring the safety of their children. Schools should give excused absences to students whose parents do not want them to attend school due to a safety concern related to the cold weather. Parents are being directed to contact their school’s attendance office to report excused absences. All weather-related tardies will be automatically excused tomorrow.
The call to close schools is left to the Superintendent, and I’m reminded that schools were closed due to weather twice last year.
What do you think the right policy should be? I really want to know what you think…I’m really divided here.
I think the Superintendent should stand outside with our students or better yet, walk to school like most of our students who don’t ride the bus. With a wind chill of 30 minus, deciding to not cancel is not only the wrong decision, it is inhumane.
I do see both sides. My son loves school, shock, and wants to go to school. I don’t feel that the district is taking everything into consideration here. They called a snow day for Tues and the morning temps are supposed to be alot colder on Wed. morning. I don’t see what the problem with Tom calling another snow day is. I know that all districts have blind snow days in the schedule and they rarely use them if ever. If the windchill is going to be -30* then that becomes a big problem. Young kids will freeze or their skin will if exposed to the elements too long. I know that alot of the kids don’t have proper clothing, I see this all the time kids going to school with nothing but a light jacket on. That will not keep anyone warm in this weather for any period of time. I know that this can be a hardship on families too. Some kids would be left unattended at home if there wasn’t school. So it is a damned if you do damned if you don’t. I myself feel school should be closed just because of the dangerous windchill. Keep our kids safe and warm.
Here’s where I think I am on this. We should let each school determine for themselves. In the case of some schools, most kids are driven to school, so it would be relatively easy to set up car pools for kids that are close enough to walk but shouldn’t because of the weather. In other cases, we should be keeping schools open so that working parents don’t miss work for having to care for kids, and we should redirect resources so that buses pick up kids that live more than 3 blocks from the school (for elementaries) for those kids that would walk to school. For high schoolers, we need to get away from the “zone school” concept. For example, we have students that need English-learner support at Lincoln High that actually live across town and are exposed to the elements. If all teachers were English-language learner certified, we wouldn’t need to uproot them from their home school in the first place.
Ya know…perhaps working a day with the school nurse tomorrow would be an eye opening experience.
and then when the day is done at 5:00…go wait for RTD to take you home….oh yea, they don’t do door to door service either and certainly won’t wait for you to grab starbucks (but 7-11 is a decent substitute)
Schools did not close years ago when weather was much worse and winters stayed a lot longer. If Chicago schools have never closed in 12 years until now take their suggestions for keeping schools open. It always comes down to; if one person is affected then punish everyone, That is not a good solution. Co. requires 990 hours of school time for children, are they getting that, I see no snow make up days, are they figured in, if so put that on the school calendar so parents can see that they are getting the number of hours in class. Yes it is cold and our winters are more mild, but we do have bad days so people should be prepared. Teach their children to layer, you don’t need 20 below coats, just layer on alot of clothes. People have become spoiled with our weather and years ago you never saw children go to school in winter in shorts, no jacket etc and this I see every time I go to pick up children,
I think on balance, the mistake the administration made was in deciding so early to cancel school on Tuesday. It wouldn’t have been too bad, really to have the kids in school that day, then the pressure wouldn’t have been so great to reopen on Wednesday when the wind chills could have truly been dangerous for any kids who had to stand out in it for long periods. (I’m thinking of high school kids who take RTD, and sometimes have to transfer and wait a while in between.)
These are calls that have to be made by real people in difficult situations and I sympathize with the DPS folks who made those decisions and then were roundly criticized from all sides. It seemed that no one could see both sides to it and treat the issue that way. My daughter (an 11th grader at a DPS high school) made a comment encouraging folks to see both sides on the DPS facebook page, and then she was slammed shamefully by many unthinking awful people. Very sad.