New York City schools are open despite travel advisory

[B2G]

Carment Farina is as crazy as a loon. Evidently parents in NYC aren't capable of caring for their own children. Unreal.



"Because of its timing and intensity, this storm is going to make both the morning and evening rush hours extremely difficult," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "If you do not need to drive, you will help yourself and everyone else by staying off the roads. Take mass transit and leave extra time - it will be slow-going for everyone tomorrow."

Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina defended the decision to keep schools open, saying "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Farina said the decision is up to parents, but she has to keep students' best interest in mind.

"If people can go to work, then kids can to school," she said. "Many of our kids don't get a hot lunch and, in many cases breakfast, unless they go to school. So it's still a parent's decision whether they send their kids to school or not. My decision is where the kids are safest and the most taken care of, and the answer to that is in schools."

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9429997

[gollygee]

1. I don't know if that's her point

I'm a stay at home mom, so if school is closed, I take care of my kids. But a lot of my friends have to try to find a babysitter, or keep the kids at home alone, when school is closed because they still have to work. If it's a choice between school, or home alone, then yeah school is a better choice.

We routinely have school open during travel advisories. School only closes if it's so cold that kids will get frostbite waiting for the bus or walking to school, or there's so much snow that the buses can't get through, or there's an ice storm.

[pampango]

20. Good point. Big city school districts generally consider the family structure of their students is

frequently different from that of suburban and rural students. Most feel that suburban/rural students' families have more stay-at-home parents or job flexibility and/or access to emergency child care backups (either family or affordable day care) than do many urban families. So urban schools try harder to stay open in bad weather that will close many suburban and rural districts.

[NYC Liberal]

2. So? It's not THAT bad here. And if you think it's unsafe,

keep your kid(s) home.

[B2G]

4. Aren't you supposed to get 8-12 inches of snow?

With possible icing? Are you in the city school district? Have you looked out your window lately?

[NYC Liberal]

6. I was in it. I went to work at 7 this morning.

If parents feel it really is too dangerous then they can keep their kids home.

Also consider that a lot of parents do have to work, so staying home with their kids isn't a viable option.

[B2G]

8. Hope you make it home safely

I'm initimately familiar with the amount of moisture in this system and it adds up very quickly. The icing only makes it worse.

Be safe out there.

[NYC Liberal]

10. Yeah, the ice is much worse than the snow.

It's letting up some and then it's supposed to rain this afternoon. Hopefully it won't get any worse!

[WinkyDink]

14. To "keep their kids home" = School lessons missed. THIS is what the Chancellor can't understand,

because she is fixated on the FOOD.

[NYC Liberal]

16. And what about the parents who HAVE to work?

What are they supposed to do if schools are closed?

[B2G]

25. Friends, family, sitters, neighbors?

What did they do during Sandy?

[Chorophyll]

28. "They" went to shelters during Sandy.

Everything was shut down. NYC is surrounded by water. Many places were flooded. Snow and floods are two very different things.

I can't for the life of me understand this hostility toward public institutions that serve children remaining open in the snow. This is DEMOCRATIC Underground, right?

[NYC Liberal]

30. Sandy closed EVERYTHING.

The entire public transportation system was shut down.

You can't compare that to a few inches of snow.

[WinkyDink]

32. I live in suburbia PA; our schools are closed as I type. Don't kids ever get sick in NYC?

[NYC Liberal]

34. NYC schools have only closed maybe 6-7 times in the last 15 years or so due to snow.

Snow days here are incredibly rare. I only remember one or two -- from elementary school through senior year of high school. And those few blizzards were far worse than the bit of snow we've gotten today.

[WinkyDink]

37. Then tell your mayor NOT to simultaneously advise citizens to stay home and off the streets!!

[Chorophyll]

26. Maybe if we didn't just have a tremendous cut to food stamps and unemployment insurance,

she wouldn't have to be "fixated on the FOOD?"

There are many, many poor children in New York City.

[bobclark86]

33. Free or reduced school lunch enrollment...

is over 3 out of every 4 students...
http://www.nyskwic.org/get_data/indicator_narrative_details.cfm?numIndicatorID=31

Enrollment total: 1.1 million students.

That means more than 860,000 students could easily not eat today.

That would be like telling the cities of Buffalo and Detroit sorry, you can't eat today. Tough shit.

Also, it's not like most kids sit on a bus for an hour driving around back-country roads like they do in many Upstate areas. Oh, and the city has more snow plows than several states combined.

[Chorophyll]

35. Thank you.

The outrage from people who don't live in or near NYC is kind of annoying.

[phil89]

3. I'm unclear

"Many of our kids don't get a hot lunch and, in many cases breakfast, unless they go to school" Ok so do people think this is untrue?

What makes someone "crazy as a loon" (love that stigma inducing language too) for saying this?

[B2G]

5. To say the kids are safer

traveling to and from school in treacherous conditions rather than remaining in the saftey of their own homes.

The teacher's union is rightly having a fit over this decision.

[WinkyDink]

12. Schools are not primarily to be food-service institutions.

[Chorophyll]

29. Unfortunately, certain members of Congress have left us with no other options. nt

[JaneyVee]

7. We're only getting 3-5 inches of snow. Supposedly. Already 3 inches on the ground.

But it's on top of the 10 inches that is frozen solid. She made the right call so far.

[B2G]

9. I hope so

Are you in the city? The NWS is forecasting 8-12 inches.

Interesting to me the number of people who think this was a good idea vs the crucifixtion of the Atlanta officials last week.

[WinkyDink]

11. "If people can go to work...." This is the STUPIDEST argument. In that case, no school would EVER be

closed, EVER, since someone, somewhere (police, e.g.) is at work!

[Smarmie Doofus]

13. She may or may not be a loon..... jury's still out on that... but it

doesn't have much to w. this. NYC once went about 10 years w/o EVER declaring a snow day. The default rationale for not doing so was precisely as she explains.


It's an interesting window into her ( what seems to be) pre-Bloomberg general mentality.


And THAT could be a good thing.

[WinkyDink]

15. Why not open JUST for the food? This way, no education missed, and no meals missed. Win-win.

[NYC Liberal]

18. My experience was that on days like this when school

was still open, there were enough absent kids that we DIDN'T do most of the regular lessons. Many times we didn't do anything - just hung out and went from class to class.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. Kids have to schlepp back and forth unsupervised.

Not once... but twice.

If mom/dad have to work.... who's holding down the fort?

[Smarmie Doofus]

24. Can't do that anymore. Admins come in w. clipboards and rubrics looking to write-up teachers.

Even if the class is down by 1/2 or more.


More likely to happen on a snow day than on a regular day. Admins have less to do and can catch-up on their teacher observations.

[WinkyDink]

31. I taught for 30 years; I, too, am speaking from experience.

[Smarmie Doofus]

21. Ooops. Wrong post. See my reply #19. Re. Schlepping. n/t

[B2G]

17. So the parents can choose but

Can the teachers?

[TheMathieu]

22. EDIT: After reflecting more on this decision, I can understand it. nt

Last edited Thu Feb 13, 2014, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)

[raging moderate]

23. It is difficult, but I know what Carmen Farina means.

The public schools have long functioned as havens for poor children. In fact, that is probably one reason I wound up working in them, since my own family was somewhat poor. It is true that some parents are effectively prevented from properly caring for their children by draconian employers. This has always been true, and it remains true today. My mother once got fired for staying home with sick preschoolers. That is a big reason why so many people got marooned in New Orleans after that flimsy dam broke. Employers can always manufacture "documentation" for railroading disliked employees out of a job, no matter how hard they are working (even with "tenured" teachers).
And then there are the few hapless children with vicious or ineffective parents. With a long career working as an itinerant speech/language pathologist in several communities throughout Illinois, I have memories of many such children. There was the 9 year old boy "Larry," with alcoholic parents. Larry's parents, although intelligent, did not keep regular hours, or maintain constant parental supervision, or encourage education in their children. I will never forget the sudden change in Larry's school attendance right after the district instituted the breakfast program. I have a vivid memory of Larry running frantically down the street, his poor dirty face with the hungry mouth open to gasp for air, running to school where he knew cheerful energetic adults were waiting to give him food and warmth and attention. Then there was "Stevie" in another town. Stevie's parents were drug addicts and vicious psychopathic liars (his mother was the only adult who ever pretended to be crying in my presence while peeking through her fingers to determine my reaction to her little farce). It was suspected that Stevie and his siblings were repeatedly berated, beaten, and locked in their room, and sometimes left alone for hours, unfed and unwashed and unprotected (yes, the school reported it all, but the town druggies found the strength to cover each other's rears and protect each other's rights). We know for sure that school was where Stevie and his siblings got their clothes washed, sponge baths taken, and as much food shoveled into their poor little thin bodies as their heroic teachers could manage. And also, there was "Jerry," whose immature mother was busy having her little rebellion against an overbearing husband with a wild drunken affair. Every morning, Jerry would show up at school with a dirty face, and eat some slices from the loaf of whole wheat bread I always kept for such emergencies.
Larry and Stevie and Jerry, if you read this, I hope you are all right. Please be all right. You were wonderful children, and all of us at school admired your courage and spirit and imagination. That was why we smiled at you so much. I am still praying for you every day, and so are many other adults you knew, teachers, aides, cooks, custodians, principals, psychologists, social workers, speech pathologists.

[phylny]

27. Fellow SLP here, and I second your remarks and experiences.

We used to keep peanut butter, jelly, bread and milk in the clinic for three kids from the same family - they were so fixated on pictures of food we used in therapy that it didn't take us long to figure out why. They were eventually taken away from their parents for a while so parents could get their acts together. I never forget the mom telling me, "They made us get rid of the cats" with such a sad, sad face. It was because her children had numerous flea bites all the time.

I can't fault NYC for their decision.

[B2G]

36. And...they are released early

What was the fucking point? @akroker concurs.

[WinkyDink]

38. But....but....WHAT ABOUT the FOOD PROGRAM and WORKING PARENTS???!!! GMA*B, Chancellor and Mayor.

[B2G]

39. I know right?

New Yorkers are royally pissed.

DU? Defend a Dem at all costs.

[Boom Sound 416]

40. Not seeing a problem here

[msanthrope]

41. Yeah??? k through 12 in NYC, we never closed, but for a hurricane. nt