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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > February > 20
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Was it bad enough to close school Wednesday?
(Matthew Weisbrodt, 8, shovels his grandmother’s Fairfield driveway Wednesday after getting a day off of school due to the weather)
Three winters ago, my family spent an academic year in Ann Arbor, Mich. It turned out to be the city’s snowiest winter ever — nearly 80 inches of snow! Just imagine if every two or three inch snowstorm we got this year was eight inches. That’s what it was like.
But the funny thing is I can’t recall the school district taking many snow days. There were probably a couple of them, but I don’t think they were threating to go over their alloted five days. (Ann Arbor schools is a mid-sized city district serving about the same number of kids as Dayton Public Schools.)
Today, with three or so inches of snow, most area school districts called off school (not Dayton, by the way). As I drove to work today, I kept thinking “this closed school?” It didn’t seem that bad to me.
In Michigan, they just seemed to have a different attitude about winter weather. Granted they get more of it and it’s worse than here. But, for instance, my daughter’s school up there was constantly reminding us to send the kids to school dressed warmly, with snow pants, on cold days because they were going outside for recess no matter what.
I don’t think they’ve had outdoor recess once at my daugther’s school in Kettering since Jan. 1.
What do you think, are we wimps? Should kids have gone to school Wednesday?
(On a related note, I should mention the Dayton school board on Tuesday did indeed approved a plan to shorten spring break to make up for using too many calamity days.)
(Image credit: Greg Lynch, Cox News Service)
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