COLUMN: On your mark, get set – school's canceled

I recently sat through a school board meeting where the discussion surrounded a bomb scare at an elementary school. Students were evacuated and sent home.

In the end there was no bomb.

Eventually the discussion ended up with a statement that parents must have a plan in place if their kids get dismissed early from school. “That’s where grandparents come in,” said one.

Easier said then done, I thought to myself.

The Tri-County Regional School Board hasn’t had a lot of storm days this school year. But there have been a few days where schools have been dismissed early because of “impending weather.”

For a working parent of elementary students like myself, these announcements are never impending the way the weather supposedly is.

They usually get dropped on us an hour before dismissal happens, and often you have less time to brace yourself depending on when you actually hear the news.

I consider myself to be a responsible parent. When my children leave home in the morning they know where they’re supposed to end up at the end of the school day. Sometimes it’s their babysitter. If their father isn’t lobster fishing it’s home. The latter was the plan last week.

But their dad wasn’t at home last Wednesday morning when the board announced mid-morning it was canceling school. And he wasn’t home the time before when the same thing happened. Not because we don’t have a plan, but because there was no weather activity happening at the time and he had things to do, which may or may not involve him being near a radio or accessible by phone.

Back at my desk at work, I’m now faced with the prospect of my young children perhaps ending up at an empty house in about 45 minutes, unless I can track him down or move onto my backup plan – usually my parents.

Only guess what? They’re not home either. After all it’s not snowing. It’s not even raining. It’s dull and grey with a risk of freezing rain late in the afternoon. So now I’ve got to track them down. And if I can’t find them, then what? My next backup plan?

Eventually I’m going to run out of plans, or relatives. If my babysitter is home that’s fine, but what if she’s not, what’s her backup plan? And does she have a backup to her backup?

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the board, because the way I see it they’re in a no-win situation.

If they cancel school and nothing happens, parents are annoyed and the board doesn’t come off looking great. If they don’t cancel school and we get hit with a weather bomb, parents are annoyed and the board doesn’t come off looking great.

But the system that’s in place now still annoys parents and to be honest, the board still doesn’t come off looking that great. Having to scramble to make accommodations for your children when you’re given an hour’s notice, or less, is less than ideal in my opinion.

The reality is there isn’t always someone home, whether it’s your plan or not. People don’t stay home every morning of the school year on the off chance school is cancelled an hour and a half after it started.

Is the parent being irresponsible here?

I know there are times when dismissals are unavoidable and sudden. Like a bomb scare or other scenarios. And I know we’re not just talking about one or two kids here. We’re talking hundreds or thousands. But when it comes to the weather, I don’t think a forecast is so drastically different from one hour to next. Surely the information these decisions are based on, and the decision itself, don’t all happen at 9:59 a.m. for a 10 a.m. announcement.

I’m sure a school wouldn’t send a young child home or elsewhere without knowing that someone will be waiting for them.

But would it be so wrong on mornings when the afternoon forecast is iffy and cause for concern for the school board to tell parents early on that it is monitoring the weather and there may be a chance of an early dismissal that day?

This way parents can move onto Plan B if Plan A is running morning errands in Lockeport (more than an hour’s drive away) or at a doctor’s appointment, or doing groceries.

The board is responsible for safely transporting 8,000 children home and says when it comes to student safety it has to take a proactive approach based on the information it has at the time.

God knows I wouldn’t want my kids traveling on a bus in freezing rain or in blowing snow if it could be avoided, and if the board is looking out for their safety I appreciate that.

But I’m looking out for their safety too and sometimes I need more than an hour’s notice, or half an hour, to do this.

Let’s see how accommodating my kids’ grandparents are when I tell them they have to stay home forever…just in case.

Or at least until the spring.



(THIS COLUMN ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE YARMOUTH VANGUARD ON FEB. 12, 2008)