Thursday, March 01, 2012

Schools close for the threat of snow...

Snow days aren't what they used to be. When I was a kid in Michigan, of course we lived for the days the radio would report closures and we'd stay home from school. Back in those days there was actually snow on the ground. Lot's of snow. It was Michigan, after all.

Today, there was some drizzly rain, and my kids were thanking God for closing school for the day. Literally, God got the credit from them.

You can say it's global warming or climate change (or whatever it's called) that is messing up the snow days. I don't think so. I'm chalking it up to trigger-happy school administrators who fear a lawsuit coming from slush-related head injury. Whatever it is, my kids get out of school for the dumbest things these days. "Collaboration" days is another one. I was thinking about that while I was sitting here at Starbucks. Imagine what would happen to business if Starbucks employees took "collaboration" days... or mornings.... Like right around the time teachers were driving to their jobs. "I'm sorry sir, we can't serve you coffee right now, it's a collaboration morning, and we Starbucks employees need time to talk among ourselves." Well, teachers would just go to another coffee place, Pete's say, and get coffee there. Haha, I guess we can't really apply capitalist agendas to the business of education, now can we? Well, unless it's when you're talking about a union - something designed to protect employees from wicked capitalists... hmmm.

That's kinda how it goes in our schools now. Someone had this idea... if teachers just took more time to talk among themselves, they wouldn't have to go out for beers to do it on their own time. Nor would they have to wait all the way to the 10 weeks of summer they have off... every day.

OK I really do have a LOT of respect for teachers. I would NOT want their jobs. They have the hardest jobs on the planet, if you ask me. At least public teachers in the United States, anyway. It's not even the administrator's fault for closing schools for the threat of flurries.

It's ... ok, well, my fault. And anyone who sits by and allows freeloading, lawsuit-happy citizens to extract money for the most irresponsible reasons.  After all, an accident on the way to school could be the fault of mother nature, whom you could never win a suit against, so it would be the transportation department who should have plowed earlier. Or the bus company that didn't train drivers to chain up. Or the chain manufacturer who didn't make it easier.

Of course the district can close and get off the list of deep-pockets. And since I chalked it up to lawsuits, I guess I get to draw this conclusion. Wonder what would happen if I chalked it up to half priced lift tickets for teachers mid-week at the ski areas.... ohhhhh wait a minute...... I'm going to have to go check that out. Back soon.........