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Topic: Kids off school today to shovel snow!

Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-16-2010 12:49 PM

I wanted to get on here and vent. As if the children in Prince George's County, Maryland haven't had enough time off of school (8 days), I have this letter that the superintendent put out yesterday as they had another day off of school today for the reasons explained in this letter:

"Dear PGCPS Parents, Staff and Community,

The last two months have presented challenges in regard to severe winter weather which has placed all Prince George’s County citizens in unfamiliar territory. Most importantly, the December and February blizzards have placed our 129,000 students in the unique situation of missing a total of eight (8) days of critical learning. All of this has had a significant impact on the continuity of learning for all of our students this school year.
As a community, we must now collectively work together to get our students safely back in school as soon as possible. While the County and school system’s operations divisions have done a tremendous amount of work over the past week to clear school properties and roads, there is still much to be accomplished. We need your help! Many sidewalks that our students use to get to school remain not cleared, and impassable. In addition, we need the help of our community in clearing paths for our students to safely make it to their bus stops. As we all know from our own experience in recent days, when we are unable to traverse the two to three feet of snow on the sidewalk, we resort to walking in the streets. This is not a viable option for our children, particularly those that must travel along traffic-laden corridors. Also, please work with our school buses as drivers work to safely transport our students to and from schools. In some instances, roads are still one lane and patience with drivers as they negotiate these roads will be important in the days ahead. Finally and perhaps most importantly, we need all parents to assist your children in getting to and from school safely in light of the current road and sidewalk conditions.
Please look at the area surrounding your house and the school nearest to you – from the perspective of a much smaller, elementary student trying to get there – and do what you can to help carve out a safe path. Neighborhood, civic and public service organizations are being called upon to organize teams to clear the approaches to schools. In addition, our high school students can also join these efforts and earn service learning credit in the process.
Thank you for all you do for our students, and please do not hesitate to contact my office by phone at 301-952-6008 or by email at william.hite@pgcps.org to find out how you can support our schools.

Sincerely,
William R.Hite, Jr., Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools"

I have an opinion about this situation, but I'll hold onto it as it may violate Film-Tech's rule about discussing politics. Needless to say the only kids I saw out attempting to shovel snow were ones trying to make a quick buck...

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 02-16-2010 02:05 PM

I laugh at how some communities simply cannot deal with snow. It absolutely cripples them and the people freak out beyond belief.

But then there's this:

quote: William R.Hite, Jr., Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
a total of eight (8) days

Why is 8 both numbered as well as fully spelled out? Do people recognize one and not the other? Are they easy to confuse if the other is not there? What about the people who can only read Roman Numerals? Just pick one or the other and go with it, FFS!

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Jonathan Althaus
Master Film Handler

Posts: 435
From: Bedford, TX
Registered: Dec 2008

posted 02-16-2010 02:50 PM

People here freaked out last week, but then again, this is Dallas, and it was our biggest snowfall ever, both in one calendar day and a 24 hour period. On a side note, we never closed, while our competitor across the street closed at 6 (six) (VI) (sechs). We even ran midnights (and did better than we normally do).

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-16-2010 03:06 PM

"Hey fellow Maryland citizens, we don't have the money or manpower to clear the snow from our streets so can you make your kids do it? We'll give them the day off school as a bonus. Thanks a bunch."

Children in our local school district recently missed 5 days due to the severe ice storm that hit Lawton at the end of January. Instead of piles of snow we had piles of downed tree limbs and power lines blocking roads and causing power outages that lasted for days. Our city's water supply was nearly shut due to a backup generator failing (luckily the generator was repaired before water pressure/supply was affected). And our community was one of the lucky ones. Other smaller communities to the east and west were without electricity for a week or longer -some more than 2 weeks. Some towns still have boiling orders for their water supplies.

I am so ready for this winter to be over. Winter 2010 has sucked ass, ran out of poo and is begging for seconds.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-16-2010 03:41 PM

Here is a picture of the street where I live. No different from every other street in Montgomery that day. It was taken at 4:00pm Friday. It stopped snowing altogether a few minutes later.. It started snowing at 6:45 am, so about 9 hours of snow. The State, County, and City all closed down late Thursday afternoon - more than 12 hours before the first flake fell. All day Friday the powers that be were telling everyone to stay in their homes. Many businesses closed. We had 8 people attend the film Friday night.

We are a weak sad bunch in the South [Confused]

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-16-2010 03:56 PM

So they missed 8 days of critical learning?

Bullshit. Those 8 days won't make a damned bit of difference in those kid's lives at graduation. He needs to get over himself and his school system.

Normally I would scoff at you for posting an email address for the spambots to find, but this guy deserves it. [Razz]

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John Wilson
Film God

Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-16-2010 04:26 PM

quote: Martin McCaffery
Here is a picture of the street where I live.

Geeez...we get more snow than that in Sydney!

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-16-2010 06:26 PM

Yeah, that is one WEAK example of 9 hours of snow!

We're supposed to get a "slight chance of flurries" tomorrow that'll give us more snow than that. [beer]

Around here the snow hasn't been all that bad, in fact we've had less snow than some years. The big thing here has been the temperature. Right now we're sitting at 15, but we've had more below-zero days this winter than any year I can remember. Usually we'll have quite a few days of 30s and 40s and even 50s, but not this year. I don't think we've been above freezing more than a couple times since late November.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 02-16-2010 09:47 PM

We never got out of school due to bad weather-we all learned to tough it out.

Yet, there was one day that it was a total blizzard and we got out early so the buses could get us home before the country roads drifted in since the roads ran east/west and we always had SW winds.

One night we got 4 ft of snow, roads all drifted in and my dad would run me up to the bus stop on the snowmobile.

Now, it snows 4 inches and they close down schools for "snow days" ... [Roll Eyes]

What happened to all of our Americans?

-Monte

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-16-2010 10:15 PM

Places that are used to getting lots of snow budget for all the equipment and materials needed to deal with it. For example, when I lived in the Syracuse, NY suburb of Liverpool we had only 1 snow day off from Liverpool Middle School. I can't remember how many inches it snowed for us to get the day off, but I know it was significantly more than the 12" or so you get in a good snow storm.

quote: Mike Blakesley
The big thing here has been the temperature. Right now we're sitting at 15, but we've had more below-zero days this winter than any year I can remember. Usually we'll have quite a few days of 30s and 40s and even 50s, but not this year. I don't think we've been above freezing more than a couple times since late November.

Montana sometimes gets a nice warming benefit of Chinook winds. The air falling down off the Rocky Mountains collapses and heats as it does so. The warm air can extend Eastward across a good part of the state. I can recall past winters where the temperatures here in Oklahoma were colder than parts of Montana. Pretty strange at first glance.

I don't think I could handle living in North Dakota (or even South Dakota and Nebraska for that matter). Too far North and too flat to block out any of those polar winds.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-17-2010 01:07 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Montana sometimes gets a nice warming benefit of Chinook winds. The air falling down off the Rocky Mountains collapses and heats as it does so. The warm air can extend Eastward across a good part of the state.

Yeah but with the state being about 600 miles wide, and us being about 200 miles east of the mountains, we don't usually get too much benefit from that unless it covers the whole state. Quite often, places in the west will be in the 30s and 40s while we're over here with single digits below zero!

quote: Bobby Henderson
I can recall past winters where the temperatures here in Oklahoma were colder than parts of Montana.

January 2009, my wife and I were in Florida and it was colder than Montana the whole week we were there. MT was getting temps in the 50s and Florida never got above 40 the whole week we were there. It was weird.

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