Worcestershire Journal – It’s winter, people.
by Karl - January 30, 2009 4:58pm
Wednesday night’s Greater Boston included a segment, More snow means more school cancellations, about the number of school cancellations that were called on Wednesday morning, even before the first bit of snow fell. It turned out that Waltham canceled school while Cambridge did not. Emily Rooney, the show’s host, wondered aloud if the increasing common practice of canceling school was meant to forestall any lawsuits, should any of our precious little ones slip on the slippery sidewalk and suffer a boo-boo or, heaven forbid, an owie. David Frank, from Massachusetts Lawyers’ Weekly, indicated that the decision to cancel classes or not was a judgement call for school adminstrators and that, as such, they have a good deal of legal protection in exercising that judgement.
FWIW, I’ve not been able to locate any statistics regarding the number of cancelations statewide and whether that number has increased or not. State policy dictates that school districts schedule 185 days with the expectation that five days would be lost to cancelations. Back in 2001, schools were seeking relief from the 180-day requirement because of a particularly rough winter. They got no relief then, either. (PDF).
Of course, everyone beyond school age had it tougher when they were growing up. The Logger tells us that, when he was growing up in Vermont, you had to have had three buses flipped over on the side of the road, in flames, before school would be called off. If there were two buses in flames and one lying on its side, well, you might get a delayed opening.
So, we really don’t know if we’re worse weather wimps or not. It seems like it, although perhaps with some cause. We may be jumpy because, as Emily Rooney suggested, that double-plus–ungood snowstorm-induced traffic jam in December 2007 makes us skittish at the first hint of snow in the forecasts. That event, which had people in their cars or kids on buses for hours and hours, has terrorized our thinking. That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger unless it makes us stupid.
At this writing, there’s talk of a good-sized storm on Monday night/Tuesday, although the forecast models differ significantly on the type (rain or snow) and amount (little or a lot) of precipitation,
So, get out while you still can.
Or, not.