Roofs collapsing,
school districts staying closed for roof inspections even after the storms have passed...chaotic early releases to get people who have already showed up for the day out of the buildings, and school districts and unions negotiating how to add all those days lost back into the year...
What a week.
The district to the south of me just added, as expected, a whole week to the end of the year in June. Not that we expect all the students to show up for that.
My district? Getting "creative," by making curriculum days student days (fine,) one parent conference day a student day, (not fine, since we're expected to have the same number of conferences in half the provided time), and making Presidents' Day a student day...how they get away with having school on a national holiday, I'm not sure. For teachers, they call it a "non contract day." I don't know what the rationalization for students is.
Meanwhile, our governor has declared a state of emergency.
http://www.oregonlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2017/01/gov_kate_brown_close_to_declar.html
Personally, I'd rather see the governor offer an exemption to the days/hours requirement, since we are in a state of emergency, for this year, and look at solving the calendar problems in an even more "creative" way for next year and beyond:
How about we actually add extra instructional days beyond the legal minimum into the regular school calendar? That extra instructional time would certainly benefit student learning every year, assuming we're not going to have winters like this every year.
Oh. Of course. It would cost $$$. You would have to pay to open and staff school buildings for those extra days. We can't have that. But still...why not err on the side of service to students?
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