Everyone who has ever been a child in this country can relate to the excitement of the possibility of the ever-magical SNOW DAY!. We here in my town have had two already this winter. Now, I used to be president (actually CO-president) of my local PTA and as I recall, our school district only built one Snow Day in to each year's calendar, in order to reach the state's proscribed (or is it PREscribed? Idk.) number of school days in the year. I recall that if we fell short of the 185 or so days of school, the state would withhold all funding, take our buses away and remove all monkey bars from the playgrounds.
So. today it is snowing big flakes. It is sticking and the forecast is for snow through the next two days. My daughters, their friends and my significant other sat by the fire, looking out onto the white wonderland outside when the phone rang. We recognized the number of the office of the school superintendent. Excitement built to a frenzy. We turned it on speaker. "Good evening," the serious sounding pre-recorded voice said. "This is Dr. Gideon, the superintendent of schools. Due to the inclement weather and the threat of increasing precipitation in solid form and with concern for the mental well-being of all involved, I, Dr. Gideon, superintendent of schools, on this day, February 24, in the year of our lord, 2010, being of sound mind . . ."
Tension mounts in the room. We are all straining to hear the magic words. . . . "keeping our eyes glued to the latest weather reports and carefully studying teachers' contracts as to entitled days off, will let you know tomorrow morning whether or not you have a snow day."
We let out a collective groan. "What the hell!?" several of the girls shouted. We moms did not correct their language. "That message said absolutely nothing!"
True, no? The politics of school administrators reaching into the sanctuary of our homes and wreaking havoc with our minds, our hopes and our dreams.
Snow Day tomorrow? Maybe. If there is one, I think they will have to take a day away from spring break in late March. The teachers would not like that. Well, I probably wouldn't like it so much either.
