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School districts have several valid reasons for starting school two hours late, or even canceling school on days below 15 degrees or so.
1. Children waiting in the cold and dark at 5:30 to 6:30 in the AM. They are not running or playing, they are standing, in some cases 20 or 30 minutes outside in dropping temperatures. Two hour delay allows the temps to begin to rise if even slightly.
2. Buses do have issues starting on the coldest of mornings, because of the nature of diesels.
3. Buses have air brakes. Air brakes collect lots of moisture from their compressors. The multiple valves in the lines get frozen and hind or stop the brakes from working properly. This issue is further complicated by the age of the bus fleet, especially in the south. Newer buses have air dryers inline to prevent or at least deter water vapor in the lines. The older buses are not fitted with these air dryers. (not cost effective for the few days of cold in most southern states.)
4. Buildings must generate heat, and the cold retards that ability. Although, most school systems are not on computerized heating and cooling systems that take outside temperatures into consideration and begin the heating cycle much earlier in the evening than on warmer nights.
The further south you get the wimpier people seem to be. We are closed here for 4 or 5 degrees F, but in Michigan they would be closed all the time if they did that. It is strange and I don't get it.
It has nothing to do with being wimpy.
Schools in the south are not going to spend a lot of money on being prepared for the occasional snow day that might not even happen every year. It’s probably more cost effective to just not have school, or to delay school by a couple of hours. However, the further north you go, the more snow they usually get. Those schools are not going to be canceling school every other day in the winter, so they’re going to be more prepared for winter.
It’s the same with snow plows and salt trucks. Georgia is obviously not going to spend the same amount of money on snow removal equipment as Alaska, because it’s not needed as much in Georgia. It would just be a waste of money. Better for people to just stay home once when they have the occasional “winter storm.”
The buses in Minnesota likely have plug in block heaters while those in Alabama won't. Same way with sanders.
From a school year perspective a 2 hour delay is better since it doesn't (typically) have to made up during breaks or, as is most common in Maryland, tacking it onto the end of the year, like a full day closure has to.
Either one is disruptive.
Here's what often happened when we switched to an A/B schedule:
Monday is an A Day, you have specific groups of students that day and a different group on a B Day.
You have Tuesday off for snow, you don't see your B Day kids.
You come back Wednesday and follow up your Monday lesson, which Tuesday's classes haven't had yet.
Thursday B Day you now have to do your Tuesday lesson. A Day kids are ahead now.
You end up playing catch up for weeks. It gets worse if you have more weather days.
More than a few times it would shake out that you wouldn't see those B Day kids for a week or more.
We have A-E days. If school is canceled on an A day, the next school day becomes an A day. Its also,that way when we have a scheduled day off. So like if next Monday is a D day, then because of MLK, D day would fall on a Tuesday after that until our next day off. It’s confusing at times, especially when trying to plan further in advance, but it’s also nice that the students don’t end up missing anything because of a day off from school. And they don’t get behind other classes with specials (this is elementary school, but all the schools in the district do the same).
Although I still think I liked the simpler schedule of when I was in school. Every Monday was the same, every Tuesday was the same, etc... If we had a snow day on Wednesday, then we just didn’t get art (or whatever) that week.
The buses in Minnesota likely have plug in block heaters while those in Alabama won't. Same way with sanders.
From a school year perspective a 2 hour delay is better since it doesn't (typically) have to made up during breaks or, as is most common in Maryland, tacking it onto the end of the year, like a full day closure has to.
Either one is disruptive.
Here's what often happened when we switched to an A/B schedule:
Monday is an A Day, you have specific groups of students that day and a different group on a B Day.
You have Tuesday off for snow, you don't see your B Day kids.
You come back Wednesday and follow up your Monday lesson, which Tuesday's classes haven't had yet.
Thursday B Day you now have to do your Tuesday lesson. A Day kids are ahead now.
You end up playing catch up for weeks. It gets worse if you have more weather days.
More than a few times it would shake out that you wouldn't see those B Day kids for a week or more.
I understand the scheduling issues, especially with block days. Colleges have similar issues, which is why our local university, the U of Colorado, has a pretty firm policy of not cancelling classes. Granted, they are older students, but the other concerns such as teachers/staff needing to get to campus (and Boulder doing a p*as-poor job of snow clearance), students walking to class because they don't have cars/ can't park on campus, etc.
It does seem like some of these reasons given by some don't really hold water, though.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 01-05-2018 at 08:38 PM..
The buses in Minnesota likely have plug in block heaters while those in Alabama won't. Same way with sanders.
From a school year perspective a 2 hour delay is better since it doesn't (typically) have to made up during breaks or, as is most common in Maryland, tacking it onto the end of the year, like a full day closure has to.
Either one is disruptive.
Here's what often happened when we switched to an A/B schedule:
Monday is an A Day, you have specific groups of students that day and a different group on a B Day.
You have Tuesday off for snow, you don't see your B Day kids.
You come back Wednesday and follow up your Monday lesson, which Tuesday's classes haven't had yet.
Thursday B Day you now have to do your Tuesday lesson. A Day kids are ahead now.
You end up playing catch up for weeks. It gets worse if you have more weather days.
More than a few times it would shake out that you wouldn't see those B Day kids for a week or more.
I have worked in three districts with A/B block scheduling. All of them started up with the day they missed. So in your scenario Wednesday would be a B day.
The further south you get the wimpier people seem to be. We are closed here for 4 or 5 degrees F, but in Michigan they would be closed all the time if they did that. It is strange and I don't get it.
Have you been to the south? They build differently because they live in a different climate. They build to keep their building cool in the summers, which we do not do up here. This extreme cold is literally just that, extreme. If the schools in the south built to our standards their buildings would be unbearable in the more common heat they experience.
Meanwhile up here, schools have closed due to the extreme heat at the ends of the school year, since we don't prepare for such a condition by air conditioning all of our schools.
And none of that even takes into account the differences in other things like buses.
The further south you get the wimpier people seem to be. We are closed here for 4 or 5 degrees F, but in Michigan they would be closed all the time if they did that. It is strange and I don't get it.
Hmm, I'm not that far from Michigan and our schools don't close for only 2 hours for the cold weather, they close all day. Reason being, most kids here ride the bus and if they are waiting outside for the bus they can get frost bite. Also, it could be a bigger problem if a bus breaks down from the cold.
When we lived in Illinois our kids school DID have the 2 hours weather delay and honestly it was implemented once that I could remember. The district was debating on closing for the day and wasn't sure so they called a 2 hour delay. During that time the temp outside rise so school did start. Had it not they would have closed.
I have worked in three districts with A/B block scheduling. All of them started up with the day they missed. So in your scenario Wednesday would be a B day.
That was too complicated. I suggested that when we went to the schedule and got looks like I'd grown a third eye or something.
When I was a kid in NY they made us leave 2 hours early when the temperature was below freezing..three if it was snowing
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