The Blizzard of 2018

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by mwbms28

I'm surprised by all of the school cancellations tomorrow.

When I was in HS - 1995-1999 - I recall one two-day snow day in four years. In my entire life really.

Now it seems like all the schools do it all the time.

I think it's pretty soft. It stopped snowing at 6:00 where I am. Wake up in the morning and go to school. Towns have all night to clean it up.

Many parents now have to miss work again and possibly lose money they can't afford to lose. In other areas, many children would be safer at school.

Or we just didn't have snow and cold in the 90's. Must have been Clinton's magic touch.

Two things Post 2000 has actually been the snowiest time in Boston history and 2) a lot of coastal town are using schools as shelters since the coastal flooding was so bad

[mdovell]

The other aspect is frankly much of school is online now. I recall typing projects out and printing them but little else. Now there's power school, school dude, black board etc. If you call out a snow day students can now put papers in and that's a huge factor. Add in some webcams and class just doesn't end.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by mdovell

The other aspect is frankly much of school is online now. I recall typing projects out and printing them but little else. Now there's power school, school dude, black board etc. If you call out a snow day students can now put papers in and that's a huge factor. Add in some webcams and class just doesn't end.

This is all true (and I know teachers from the elementary level through college who demand work be submitted even on snow days); but there are still minimum requirements for days in school at the public school level. I believe it's 180 and I don't know that it's changed at all in decades. So even with technology, the days off are big disruption.

We also had a ton of snow days when I was in school (graduated high school in '04). Many of them were duds. I don't think it's much worse now than it was back then as far as cancellations go.

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by mwbms28

I'm surprised by all of the school cancellations tomorrow.

When I was in HS - 1995-1999 - I recall one two-day snow day in four years. In my entire life really.

Now it seems like all the schools do it all the time.

I think it's pretty soft. It stopped snowing at 6:00 where I am. Wake up in the morning and go to school. Towns have all night to clean it up.

Many parents now have to miss work again and possibly lose money they can't afford to lose. In other areas, many children would be safer at school.

Or we just didn't have snow and cold in the 90's. Must have been Clinton's magic touch.

It seems that over the past few years, people have been less and less diligent about shoveling their sidewalk. Anyone else notice that? It's now a week past the storm and there are whole roads around the university I work at where no one bothered to shovel the sidewalk, or every few houses are shoveled but the rest were either barely touched and not salted or just not done at all. And these aren't neighborhoods where college students live! People have had to walk out on the street. I have had to dodge college kids trudging down a very busy road because there's no sidewalk to walk on and the road is already narrow from the plows. It's not a good situation.

On Friday evening, I didn't want to deal with driving the 5 minute walk to the 7/11 down the store and needed to pick up some things I missed during the French Toast Extravaganza of Wed. night. I had to walk in the street most of the time - and that was 24 hours after the storm ended! I halfway wonder if schools have to close partially because they know students aren't going to have a safe way to walk to school.

Have towns just stopped fining for unshoveled sidewalks?

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Have towns just stopped fining for unshoveled sidewalks?

Not that I'm aware of. I know of several coworkers who told me they received phone recordings from the town telling them they had to shovel their sidewalks by a certain date or get fines. They did it because they've received fines in the past.


My town doesn't require shoveling of sidewalks, which I find strange. However, there's really only a small walkable town center, and other than that residential roads with wide streets. I haven't shoveled my sidewalks, but that's only because nobody is walking the neighborhood right now.