Saturday, January 10, 2009

Snow Days

Between the floods and the snow storms that have plagued Western Washington, it's been a very long time since I've seen the inside of my classroom.  I hope my potted plants are ok!

One year, the school district decided not to schedule a snow day on a day when they obviously should have.  I mean, there was like a half-foot of snow on the ground and the roads were hellish!  Most of the teachers made it in ok (we've been up here long enough to have cars that can handle the snow), but the real problem is the buses: they can't.

One poor bus tried to make it down the twisty mountain road to try to get to our school.  Unfortunately, the driver lost control and plowed into a guard rail.  The rule is: if a bus driver gets in an accident, they are required to park the bus immediately and radio for a replacement driver.  The original driver is taken in for mandatory drug testing.  It took a while (with the messy roads and all) for the replacement bus driver to show up, and in the meantime, the students are sitting in a cold school bus.  The second bus driver made it perhaps another quarter of a mile down the road before losing control and plowing into oncoming traffic (no one was hurt, thankfully).

The students finally showed up to school, an hour and a half after class started and mad as hell.  The next day, the district called a snow day and we all stayed home.

Experience is the best teacher, I've heard.

2 comments:

Ulk said...

That's crazy, why didn't they close the roads earlier though?

I know exactly what you're talking about. I just drove through northern Montana last week during the incredible snow storm... roads were closed by the sheriff, we couldn't see the car 20 feet in front of us. I drove from ~11pm - 4am going 20-30mph down those windy roads. Crazy.

Mrs. W said...

They don't like to close down the school because we have to make up days in the summer when that happens. I almost wish they would schedule an extra 5 days into the school schedule, and if we don't have to use them, they can go "Surprise! School's out a week early!" Certainly, it would get rid of that final week when we can't do fuck-all because the grades are all in and everyone knows you can't do anything to them.