To Cold for School?

Have you ever been told to stay home from school because it was to cold outside?

In the South whenever snow is predicted in the forecast, schools are ready to shut down. I'm a Northern girl and know all to well about bad snow days, but even during the bad snow days in the North school still remained in session. There may have been a delayed opening but we still had to go to school.

However, snow flurries and it being a bit to cold outside constitutes a school closing in Georgia. 

But isn't that why we wear jackets, sweaters, gloves, scarfs, hats and boots; the things that help us combat bad weather? You can still drive in the cold -- hell, you can still drive with snow flurries! If the heating systems in schools aren't working and the classrooms are freezing than that's a different story. But if children are bundled up outside and there's heat in the schools, then classes should proceed.

Being a child from "yankee land" it's definitely noticeable that children in the South, miss way more school than those in the North. Local parents have said that children in the South can afford to miss school, because they don't have as many snow days. But shouldn't that be more the reason to keep schools open and children learning?

This past Christmas holiday children in Southern Georgia were let out of school an entire week before the holiday, and these same children didn't return to school until almost a week after New Years Day. Should children have almost a month vacation for two holidays? 

With single parent households or a household where both parents work, I assume it'd be hard to find somewhere to keep your children. And for latchkey kids the additional time off can lead to trouble, or for trouble to find them.

Who calls the shots on whether or not to close the schools down? 

Whoever it is they must not hear the parents I hear complaining about where to put their kids, and wondering how they will feed them for the entire day.

I discovered that most struggling single parents really count on schools to give their children breakfast and lunch, so all they have to worry about is dinner. But when children are home for almost a month that's three meals a day plus snacks -- depending on how many children you have. That can take a toll on parents' pockets.

In short, unnecessary closings should be forbidden and when schools are closed, there should be free extra-curricular activities for children. It would lighten the load on parents, keep children active, learning, and out of trouble.

The Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...

2009 LA