Snow day!!

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by Camden Northsider

Do the Minneapolis Public Schools EVER call a snow day??? Our work has a policy that if MPS closes, our offices close, and in the past 5 years I can't say I remember this happening even once.

I believe the criteria is, can the kids walk or get to school on the bus on a given day. In the city, it takes a pretty wicked storm to meet that criteria. In the burbs and rural areas, lesser storms result in inability to get around in the snow.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

I believe the criteria is, can the kids walk or get to school on the bus on a given day. In the city, it takes a pretty wicked storm to meet that criteria. In the burbs and rural areas, lesser storms result in inability to get around in the snow.

FWIW, I don't remember more than one or two snow days total in the 13 years that I went to school in the Hopkins school district (1967-1981). The buses always ran, and Minnetonka did a very good job of plowing the streets.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

FWIW, I don't remember more than one or two snow days total in the 13 years that I went to school in the Hopkins school district (1967-1981). The buses always ran, and Minnetonka did a very good job of plowing the streets.

We could usually count on one snow day/year growing up-mainly because we lived in Stillwater and the hills were an issue. Then again, we got a lot more snow back then too.

I remember my junior year in high school we got a new superintendent from Texas in our district. There was talk of a HUGE storm that was to hit during the school day so they called off school. We didn't see a single flake of snow. The next storm comes, hits in the middle of the night, there is at least 6" of heavy, wet snow by morning and falling at a big clip. They didn't call off school, buses were getting stuck left and right, 2 buses were in accidents, about 50 kids actually made it to school that day. It was horrible. That superintendent didn't stick around a long time.

[City Data Guy]

I had a snow day on December 9th. I went to the spot where the bus picks up me and a few other people for school. When I got there, nobody was at the stop besides me. I stood there for roughly three to five minutes. I walked back home and went to my high school's website. When I clicked the link, the website informed that school was canceled due to the snow storm. It was the first (and might be the only) snow day of the year.

[Gibby3000]

Never had a single snow day in the entire time I attended Richfield schools - not sure why we've become such wimps that we have all these snow days in the metro now. Certainly this last bit of snow was no reason not to get to work - made my drive from Shoreview to downtown Mpls without a problem. You just need to be able to read a map and take a route other than the freeway - which I realize can be a problem on the south side - fortunately I no longer live down there. To clarify - it's a problem getting into Mpls on anything other than a freeway when you have the river to deal with. I wasn't insinuating that people on the south side can't read a map.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by Gibby3000

Never had a single snow day in the entire time I attended Richfield schools - not sure why we've become such wimps that we have all these snow days in the metro now. Certainly this last bit of snow was no reason not to get to work - made my drive from Shoreview to downtown Mpls without a problem. You just need to be able to read a map and take a route other than the freeway - which I realize can be a problem on the south side - fortunately I no longer live down there. To clarify - it's a problem getting into Mpls on anything other than a freeway when you have the river to deal with. I wasn't insinuating that people on the south side can't read a map.

The issue wasn't the freeways or getting into Minneapolis, it was the open areas around the southern suburbs and the blowing snow and zero visibility. My drive from Rosemount to Eagan was just fine but just south of our development is open farm land and you couldn't see across the street there. I don't consider ONE snow day in 4 years a lot.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by Camden Northsider

Do the Minneapolis Public Schools EVER call a snow day??? Our work has a policy that if MPS closes, our offices close, and in the past 5 years I can't say I remember this happening even once.

I have some great memories of MPS-granted snow days; granted, I also remember many other days when other districts got the day off and we were stuck heading off to school. I think part of the issue was that MPS was worried about kids not hearing about them, standing out on the corners waiting for buses that never came, or being alone unsupervised all day while the parents went to work.

I also remember when government-mandated "cold days" started; I think the first one was under Arne Carlson. Those weren't much fun, though; at least with most snow days you can go outside and play in the snow.

When we lived in Delaware the state called several state-wide snow emergencies. All non-essential personnel were banned from the roads. No school, no work, nothing. Minnesota at least knows how to handle the snow.