Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

That's crazy talk. All of you. I remember going to school at -21 degrees because the cutoff was -22. I remember them finally canceling school halfway through the day and the bus couldn't get onto my road because the snowdrifts were so high that they took us back to school and we watched The Land Before Time until they could plow my road. Sometimes only half of our school got snow days because those up the mountain couldn't get out, but since everyone else could, we still had to go to school, but the others got the day off. They planned something like 10-12 snow days into the curriculum. Like, we could get all of those days off and still have enough days in school to count for official whatevers. If we went over that many snow days, the last day of school would be pushed back.

Sadly, by the time I got to high school, it just didn't snow as much. It's really sad to me that the weather really does seem to be more mild. I think we got one "snow" day in high school. Except that wasn't for snow. It was because it finally reached -22 degrees. (The day after we went to school in -21, which was fun because my high school didn't have a cafeteria, so we walked 3 blocks to the elementary to each lunch. And it was -21. Which, btw, is cold.)

Once we get into the single digits, I'm frozen. Going to school in negative degrees? You are amazing!

To give Texas some credit, they planned about a week's worth of potential hurricane days where I lived. And we actually got a few days off school to prepare for a hurricane.

They only ever closed our school if the highway was closed so that all the teachers who lived 40 miles away in the city couldn't get in, or if there was a broken water pipe and no running water in the school.

Dragon Lady wrote:They planned something like 10-12 snow days into the curriculum. Like, we could get all of those days off and still have enough days in school to count for official whatevers. If we went over that many snow days, the last day of school would be pushed back.

I guess the downside to snow days in my district was the fact that we ALWAYS had to make them up. One snow day in January = one more day of school in May.

And, come to think of it, it was far more likely that school would get canceled for hurricanes and tropical storms because snow is RARE down there. But I lived pretty close to the Gulf.

We had snow days, cold days, and ice days. And I've walked home from school when it was 20-something below (maybe worse, I can't remember). I think our weather-related "no school" days were something like 3 or 4 per year--and one year we had class for something like fifteen extra minutes per day to make it up.

I remember that the air conditioning in our school broke down on a 115 degree day, so they were going to send us all home... except they didn't because the administration decided they couldn't contact everybody's parents to let them know about it. We had to suffer through, but the teachers could take their classes to the auditorium, which was on a separate system. I was in ninth grade, and not one of my teachers let us go to the auditorium. I'm still bitter.

That's the only weather related incident I can remember, except for the time there was a severe thunderstorm at dismissal hour and we had to stay at school until it died down.

well, they cancelled because there were rolling power outages to conserve power and out school buses don't have the capacity to drive on icy roads at ALL. we didn't get any ice until last night, and there were 179 accidents, despite all the freeways being closed. i almost got stuck in the next town over because they closed the freeway over the oso and i had to take the back way.

Everyone should sign up for this because it's going to be AWESOME.

http://operationsmile5k.eventbrite.com/

Last year, we gave out free massages, free mini golf, free passes to the Seven Peaks water park...and this year, we're shooting for much of the same. Plus, it's a charity race. So come on, be charitable!

<end shameless plug>

bigcheese, is the 1-mile dirt trail groomed enough that I could walk it with a stroller?

Weather related school events. I had fog delays, where school would start two hours later than normal if it was too foggy. They have 10 or so planned into each year, and after that extra days get added to make up for it. Although since it was only a two hour delay, it took a few to make an extra day.

Dragon Lady wrote:bigcheese, is the 1-mile dirt trail groomed enough that I could walk it with a stroller?

Yes! I'm not quite sure where that course goes, but I do know that it will be stroller-friendly.

Also, kids of all ages are definitely welcome. It was really fun to see all the families that signed up last year.

we never cancelled school for weather

I remember one time my homeroom teacher started a snowball fight (8th grade) by grabbing snow from outside the door to our "mobile unit"/trailer. One of his snowballs hit our dry erase calendar on the wall. So he had to wipe it off and write that day back in, albeit in a different color. Two weeks later, that particular day was a snow day.

We had more snowball fights in homeroom, hoping for a similar result, but it never panned out.

Unit of Energy wrote:Weather related school events. I had fog delays, where school would start two hours later than normal if it was too foggy.

Where was this?

@Katya

You write for Zelophehad's Daughters?!? Ha, I never knew you were into the bloggernacle. Your awesome profile just increased.

Craig Jessop wrote:@Katya

You write for Zelophehad's Daughters?!? Ha, I never knew you were into the bloggernacle. Your awesome profile just increased.

Ex-cellent. (I'm really only an occasional blogger there, though.)

And thanks for the helpful comment on my question about Edward VIII.

Katya wrote:

Unit of Energy wrote:Weather related school events. I had fog delays, where school would start two hours later than normal if it was too foggy.

Where was this?

the southern/central section of the San Joaquin valley in CA, although it was worse in the central valley

Huh. Hazardous amount of fog are definitely not something I grew up with.

Yeah, I have learned how to drive with ten feet visibility. It's not really recommended, but I can do it. It's the only reason my roommate let me borrow her car when I hadn't driven in the snow before, I have experience on slick roads and low visibility.

Apologies to all who have been waiting for me to respond here (mostly Katya and Tao, but anyone else too.) Still on vacation and not wanting to think through and type lengthy responses; I will answer when I get back home.