The Ice Day Cometh
by John Pearson
The forecast for this week called for some pretty horrendous weather, involving ice, freezing rain, and low temperatures. Naturally, all anyone could talk about was whether or not there would be school closings.
My first inclination was to dismiss such talk as being incredibly foolish, since we work for the Dallas ISD, which never closes. Wait, I take that back. I think there was one time a few years ago, when a swarm of locusts blanketed the city. Even then, classes were merely delayed for a few hours.
My thoughts then turned to the pros and cons of “The Snow Day.”
The greatest, and certainly most obvious, benefit of a snow day (or in our case, an “inclement weather day”) is that teachers and students do not have to go to school and can instead stay home, watch TV, and drink hot cocoa. Personally, I skip the watching TV and drinking hot cocoa parts in exchange for gloriously being able to get back in bed for another six or seven hours.
After that, the advantages to having a bad weather day off drop substantially. Early in the pre-dawn morning, bleary-eyed and fuzzy-brained, nearly everyone wishes for a school closing. However, with just a little bit of rational thought, many people realize that it's better to just suck it up and go into work. After all, if you take today off, you're just trading days. School being closed today means that school will be open on a future vacation day.
Every once in awhile, there are days that probably SHOULD be inclement weather days, but the schools stay open. A couple of years ago, we had a day where snow was falling, roads were frozen, and the schools were open. Many parents decided to keep their kids at home that day. As a result, I had 10 kids at school that day. That's both classes combined!
As I sit here writing this, there is freezing rain outside, and local news channels are already predicting school closings. Despite the above arguments, a small part of me -- say about 10% -- hopes that there will be no school tomorrow.
I'm sure that part of me will be more like 98% tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.
John Pearson is a third-grade math and science teacher in Dallas, Texas. He has degrees in mechanical engineering from Duke University and Texas A&M, so most consider his math abilities adequate enough to teach nine-year olds. He is also the author of Learn Me Good (Lulu, 2006), a funny, fictionalized account of his first year in education. Read more at www.learnmegood.com
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Posted by Margaret on Jan 29, 2009 8:32 am