As students gleefully snuggle back into bed, race in front of the TV or get dressed up to go outside to enjoy another snow day, we suspect the school district must be near exhausting their planned snow days.
No doubt this winter has been memorable for the amount of snow that has fallen, despite George W. Bush’s alleged effort to create, manipulate or control global warming.
Because winters have been so mild, students might not be aware that the school district factors in a few snow days every year in the calendar. The school district is required to offer students 175 days of instruction. So, by planning 180 days of school, the district can call off classes and still comply with the law.
But, when districts have to call off school more times than the number of planned snow days, students must make up the time off. That means, if we get much more snow, Stoughton’s students will be attending an extra day or two of school in June.
It’s unknown how so many snow days will impact high school seniors. Since they have invitations ordered, plans made for parties and non-refundable security deposits hold equipment and party spaces, it would be tough to move graduation. Does that mean seniors would have to come back to school to take their finals? In years past, Stoughton’s seniors have somehow been able to miss the final week of school and still comply with the state mandated number of instructional days.
Perhaps a teacher or administrator can clue us in. Or maybe one of the students who continually suggest that we fully research every minute detail of every issue before publishing anything about it on this site can utilize their day off to find the answer.
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Speaking of days off, what do parents of small children do in Stoughton when school is called off due to snow or bitterly cold weather? Do they:
A) Leave the students home alone and pray for their safety
B) Take a vacation day from work
C) Take the kids to work
D) Send them to a house with a stay-at-home parent
E) Put them into some sort of supervised activity place (child care centers, church, YMCA)
F) Hire a teenager to watch the kids
Are there any cost effective options for parents of young children in the Stoughton area who either can’t afford to take time off or have jobs, like nurses, that prevent them from having short-notice absences?
Filed under: General Interest
Most students in the high school know that after a certain amount of snow days, we have to make those up. To be honest, that is what everyone was discussing in every single one of my classes on tuesday [i literally say in every one of my classes]. The seniors also have been wondering as whether or not we will have to make up the days we miss after a certain amount because, like you said, those are days missed where we are supposed to be learning something, and eventually the teachers won’t be able to cram all the lessons into just one day.
Essentially, my point is that yes, most [if not all] students do realize that after a certain amount of snow days, they will have to start making them up in the summer.
The seniors don’t want to have to do that [which makes sense. who would want to go to school after the day they were supposed to have graduated?], and in most cases, most likely won’t, because generally the teachers finish their class lessons a few days before the end [from my experience anyway, with the 3 "senior" classes i was in last year]. However, that concern probably can be dealt with much better getting closer to the end of the year, when the teachers have time to discuss with each other how much they really need to cram into the last few days for the seniors.
Essentially, though, there really isn’t much that can be done with concern to snow days, in reference to the other things you mentioned [children, babysitting, etc]. The reason behind a snowday is that people cannot make it to the school, whether students or teachers, due to a large amount of snow [ha yes we all know this but...] and, considering where we live, there are many that have houses in the country, or in other townships, and would not be able to make it. So while all those questions are legitimate questions, and definitely concerns when dealing with snow days, they really cannot be solved. There are problems caused by snow days, but the reason behind a snow day is quite valid.
Also, to clarify, the school district builds in two days for snowdays and other days off(too cold, pipes burst, etc.) so this school day will have to be made up in June, unfortunately. However, I do not know when these snow days will start affecting seniors. The general belief by most seniors I know is that graduation will not be moved and they won’t have to make it up.
I believe that seniors still graduate on the planned date, but we wont get out diploma until the appropriate date.
Cost effective? I don’t really believe so. But today, given the weather, I don’t think that you can really defend anybody’s decision to call off school. Even UW Madison shut down around 3:30 PM. You’ve got to keep in mind that there’s still the issue of safety, considering there were many slide-offs on the road, you never know when the person three cars ahead of you, isn’t paying attention, and all of a sudden causes an unavoidable pile-up due to conditions. I90 was at a halt since at least 1:00 PM, highways 51, 14, and 138 all got shut down, my friend’s dad ended up being stuck in downtown Madison at work because he wasn’t able to get back here to Stoughton at all, due to the road closings. In lieu of that, I don’t believe that anybody could be mad that school was canceled.
Students, nobody is mad, upset, angry or disappointed that school was closed. Remember this is a parent’s blog, not a student blog. When we talk about cost-effective options when schools are closed, we are asking parents for ideas on ways they can save money on child care when school is called off. We are not saying schools should not be closed.
As parents, we do know the reason behind school closing decisions and we support the school’s decision to cancel classes. Since you have never had to deal with the genuine problem of finding child care for 7-year-olds at 7 a.m., one hour before you are supposed to be at a real job, we know you don’t understand this issue. That’s fine.
This post is soliciting input from working parents regarding ways they ensure their children are cared for when school is called off. It is not a debate on the merits of whether school should be closed.
It is also advising parents who may not know or had forgotten that summer vacation may likely be delayed this year which could cause problems for vacation plans or alter summer child care arrangements.
This is not a conspiracy. We don’t want you endangered. We want you safe when it snows and when it is cold. But, perhaps someone in the community is aware of some program or activity that is offered when school closes. This post is more concerned about ensuring the safety of students in elementary school who still need supervision when classes are cancelled.
According to an evening news program, I believe it was the channel 3 news, day care programs like YMCA programs close when schools close, so a warning to parents this may not be an option. Just a heads-up for people making snow day plans.
Maybe this can shed some light on the issue of SHS seniors. Here is what I have seen happen with seniors and what happened when I graduated last year. Because seniors have graduation, they take final exams a few days prior to the graduation date to allow for any final grades that may prevent someone from graduating.
There were never too many snow days while I was in SHS, but I can’t imagine it would make much of a difference for seniors anyway for a few reasons. First of all, most of their learning has been completed at least a week before graduation. If they had to, I’m sure teachers would be able to find time to fit in a few lessons before graduation, even if they didn’t have a chance to test kids on it. While I was in high school, I was always annoyed at how much time a teacher could spend on any one subject, it seemed ridiculous. I’m sure that knowing ahead of time that lessons will have to be crammed into a few less days, that teachers will be able to adjust their lesson plans accordingly. Secondly, there’s nothing a student could learn in one or two extra days of class that would seriously change their grades or even matter in the long run. Most lessons that are crucial for each student to learn are usually covered for several days. It would be unlikely for anyone to miss out on something terribly important by missing a day or two of regular class. In the long run, it really doesn’t even matter for seniors because anyone planning on going to college would have taken their ACT’s or SAT’s at the end of junior year or beginning of senior year. After those huge tests, there aren’t too many things a student absolutely has to learn to be academically successful, much less anything that would be severally impacted by a day or two of missed lessons.
All in all, it just wouldn’t be worth it to keep seniors in school for a few extra days, have to change the graduation date, which would require families to change all their plans and party dates, and generally create scheduling issues for anyone involved. Making up a lesson or two just isn’t worth causing all that grief.
I have always been lucky to have a parent who usually gets to stay home whenever the weather turns ugly (my mother is a teacher in a nearby district and can usually stay home) but I can see how snow days could cause a serious problem for parents who still have to go to work and have no one to care for their children.
Choice F (Hire a teenager to watch the kids) gave me an idea. Stoughton organizations (such as the local churches or the Stoughton Youth Center) could get together a list of Stoughton Teenagers who have gone through Babysitter training courses who would be willing to look after kids on Snow/Cold days. Since High Schoolers would be at home when parents need to go to work, those students on said list could be contacted to watch children. If what Observer said was true about day cares closing, it could be an alternative for parents to think about….
Just a thought. I’m sure there are responsible, trained teenagers in the community who would be willing to help out familiar parents of their churches or organizations.
The last person who commented, she has a good point about making that list. The high school could easily make up such a list by making an announcement, telling people to meet a certain place during school/lunch/after school, to write down their info,and then having it somewhere for teachers to be able to access on days such as snow days/cold days/etc.