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A school board in South Carolina has launched a pilot program to get rid of snow days and instead have students work from home when the weather turns treacherous. Beyond depriving schoolkids of the joys of weather-enforced truancy, the plan will exacerbate the region's digital divide for student who don't have internet access at home.
Anderson County School District Five will be the first region to participate in the pilot program this upcoming school year. In the past, Anderson County had makeup days tacked on to the end of the school year in lieu of days missed due to bad weather, but most kids ended up just skipping them, according to a local news report.
Students from grades 3 through 12 in the school board are already given Chromebooks to use at home, so in the event of a snow day or other inclement weather that causes a shutdown, kids will be expected to log on from home, communicate with teachers, and complete assignments.
Source: MotherBoard
(Score: 4, Interesting) by requerdanos on Saturday August 04 2018, @07:14PM (11 children)
I have a longer memory, as do some of the folks in charge (or maybe their parents). Some years no snow, most years an inch or two during two or three days, occasionally an actual storm with ice for days or weeks and things grind to a halt.
I remember three such real storms: 1972 (snow + ice for weeks), 1989 (some snow then mostly ice for a week or so), and one in the mid/late 1990s whose date I don't recall (crippling ice for about two weeks). These don't have much to do with the establishing of the school calendar because they are so infrequent. And anyway, most storms that shut things down for this kind of period of time are hurricanes.
The "an inch or two for a day or two", and preparation for those, do factor into the school calendar.
There exists a culture of people here who believe that since their monster truck has knobby tires and four-wheel-drive, that they can cheerfully drive in ice or snow just as insanely as they live the rest of their lives. And while four-wheel-drive helps with acceleration, it doesn't do anything for braking, as these drivers find out by crashing into targets such as other drivers.
Now add the ones who don't have monster trucks, but still feel, through inexperience with winter conditions, that they are driving superheroes (but in fact are merely road hazards). This phenomenon is a real thing, and adds to the already hazardous conditions present on a snowy or icy road here in the Carolinas.
Poor road conditions, or their likelihood, are generally seen here culturally, rightly or wrongly, as cause to close schools and government offices because those closures prevent many of the injuries and deaths that would otherwise be caused by the unsafe drivers.
This wasn't much of a problem until state laws in the last several decades about enforcing a minimum number of days a student must attend a full day of school in order to be promoted to the next grade.
One might think that if a disaster occurs, the collective wisdom of our educators would put a plan in place to deal with its effects on the school calendar, and that once was the case. Now, however, aliens could attack during a blizzard in the middle of the hurricane of the millennium, and all the kids would either go to school through it all somehow, or have to repeat the affected school year under state law regardless of achievement recorded or progress made.
They's certain laws whut make you think we ain't got whut you might call the brightest bulbs on the legislative trees round these parts.
This is frustrating for school administrators, who by-and-large are not idiots, and who are faced with finding ways to do the impossible as required by state law. Giving kids credit for a "full day" if they sit home and answer an e-mail isn't a bad approach, considering the constraints that they are working under.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 04 2018, @07:52PM (8 children)
I'll just add to this that it's much less likely to get a "snow day" in SC (or many Southeastern states) and more likely to get a "freezing rain day" (or a chance of sleet or whatever). And those sorts of events (or at least a good chance of them) can happen several times per season, particularly in the western (more mountainous) part of the state, which is being discussed in TFA.
The problem isn't only stupid drivers. It's the lack of freezing weather infrastructure like plows and most importantly salt and salt trucks. Freezing rain is difficult to predict almost everywhere, because it depends very precisely on where the freeze line falls. In northern states that have infrastructure to prepare for such events, they can pretreat roads, and if there's a BRIEF period where precipitation turns frozen, the salt and other treatments are enough to handle it.
In the Southeast, this simply doesn't happen most places, and it's surprising how little frozen mix it takes until cars start to slide around like an ice rink... Even if you're a careful driver.
You're right that this is then exacerbated by people who don't know how to drive in winter weather. But the overall reason why many schools get closed frequently in the Southeast is the fear of that wintry mix, which is often most difficult to predict.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @09:44PM (7 children)
Speak for yourself. I can drive perfectly well (by which I mean without accident not at the same speed) on anything my vehicle will move in. I'm well aware most people in the south are shitty drivers even in perfectly ordinary rain though. I'd much rather drive through downtown Chicago than Houston if there's any type of weather at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday August 04 2018, @11:06PM (6 children)
Here's a fun fact for you. Sometimes during a southern snow storm, your car actually won't move significantly. The wheels just spin. If you're unlucky, they might briefly catch on a pebble and send you into a ditch.
More fun, those road conditions are often mixed with patches of road that are just wet. If you get moving on a wet patch, you may find yourself sliding on a patch of black ice where no amount of braking, accelerating, or steering is even slightly relevant to your speed and direction of travel.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @11:12PM (5 children)
Been through more than a few, yep. Ice storms are a whole lot more fun than regular old winter weather too. Snow or patchy ice is a hell of a lot easier to drive on than a solid sheet of ice that covers half the state. A half dozen bags of cement or similar in the back of the truck make it easier but you still have to know what you're doing and always play it safe.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday August 04 2018, @11:25PM (4 children)
I just stay off of the road, mostly because of people that have somehow convinced themselves that they can regain control by flooring it. I don't want to be anywhere near them when physics shows them they're wrong.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 04 2018, @11:41PM (3 children)
Heh, I just stay well back from everyone, take my time, be very careful, and keep on truckin.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday August 05 2018, @12:32AM (2 children)
I hate to come to TMB's defense in anything, but I have driven thousands of miles in snow accident-free and that's exactly my approach.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 05 2018, @02:42AM
You know what's a worse pain than icy roads? Pogonip fogs. You already can't see for shit for the fog, then your mirrors and any windows that don't have a lot of heat warming them get a thick coating of ice on them. They are not fun when you're trying to make it from OKC to Chicago in eight hours.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @02:09PM
The problem is with the person tailgating you.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 05 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
That's it in a nutshell. I learned to drive in Maine and Vermont. I love driving in the snow actually. Where I live we usually get about 1-2 weeks of bad roads per year -- frozen compacted snow and I'm always amused (unless its coming toward me or from behind) with the 4x4s in the ditch. I give myself every advantage -- I too have a 4wd car but I also have top rated snow tires, and I drive at a speed that does not exceed normal stopping distance on dry roads. You don't even really need 4wd except for going through deep stuff -- it's the tires that matter and I've driven plenty of 2wd cars (front and back) safely and easily through bad conditions. Every year though, I see some knucklehead trying to get up a small incline with their "all season" tires, just spinning and making steam.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 05 2018, @05:13PM
To fix an ambiguity, when I said "And while four-wheel-drive helps with acceleration, it doesn't do anything for braking, as these drivers find out by crashing into targets such as other drivers" what I meant was I go slow enough so I can stop in a normal distance. That means I might have to go 25 instead of 45, but on ice, going 45 can be like going 90 (made up numbers, haven't done the math).