Ohio school district to experiment with holding online classes during snow days.

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/25/AR2010102500987.html

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When bad weather hits this winter, students in a rural western Ohio school district will hit their home computers as part of an experiment.

With the Ohio Department of Education looking on, the Mississinawa Valley Schools in Darke County will try to replace days off for snow and other inclement weather with online learning.

Department officials say the test could help the state determine the future of calamity days.

(snip)

Mississinawa Superintendent Lisa Wendel tells The Columbus Dispatch the experience in online education will help students in college, where those classes are more common.

Sucks to be those kids.

[Tobin S.]

1. Aw, man! No snow days! Jeez.

Bummer.

[femmocrat]

2. Wonder if they give the kids laptops?

There could be students who do not have computers at home.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

16. The teachers would need them, too. I assume they'd be working from home as well.

[hobbit709]

3. That will work fine if power and phone lines are down in a blizzard.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Yeah, that's maybe not a great plan, esp if some kids can get online for class and others cannot.

[sarge43]

18. According to Wiki the per capita income in the school district

county, Darke, is $18,600. Reasonable assumption that many of the families can't afford even a dial up connection, let alone broadband (if it's available).

Let the kids have a day off; they can make it up at the end of the year.

If not, most of these storms don't sneak up from out of nowhere. So, "boys and girls, good possibility we'll have a snow day tomorrow. If that happens, read chapter 8 in your text book. We'll start on that when we're back."

[zanana1]

4. NO FAIR!

The one thing a kid can count on in Ohio is at least one good snow day! Ah....I remember them well. In NH where I grew up, we sometimes had two days of snowy, uneducated bliss.

[Chan790]

5. In CT.

I don't remember a year where we didn't max out the allotted 5 snow days and keep going. 2 in Nov, 2 Dec, 1 Jan and 1 March usually.

[Deep13]

7. I gottah tell yah, I live in Ohio now...

...and it seems like they call "snow day" when it really isn't that bad. Back in MA when I grew up we needed at least a foot for a snow day. Otherwise, school would be closed half the winter.

[sarge43]

10. In the rural areas it's road conditions that close the schools.

It takes time to clear and sand rural roads, especially if the snow continues into the morning. Try getting a 71 passenger school bus up and down a secondary unpaved unplowed road with 10% gradient. Even more fun if it's warming up and the snow is turning to slush and ice. Not everyone lives in a city or suburbia or even on a main road. Have to ask which is the better choice, a day tacked onto the end of the school year or bunch of dead and injured children?

When we could, we'd go for half days or school would open at 10 instead of 8 so the road crews had time to clear up.

[orleans]

11. your question...

"Have to ask which is the better choice, a day tacked onto the end of the school year or bunch of dead and injured children?"

well, i know what our answer to that is but apparently the schools outside of chicago didn't feel the same way when my daughter was little.

i remember taking her to school (i don't recall if we walked or drove) when the district should have declared a snow day. and here's why--the snow from the night before was bad/a lot but the roads were plowed. however the plow piled up mountains of snow on the sidewalk the school was on. little kids were either trying to walk on top of ten feet of snow (unsuccessfully) or they were walking in the street!

apparently the district motto was: "no snow day! who cares about the kids?"

when i saw all these kids trying to get to the fucking school i couldn't believe what i was seeing!

i guess i wasn't the only parent who had a lot to say about this. the district now believes in snow days if necessary.

[Deep13]

12. "a day tacked onto the end of the school year or bunch of dead and injured children?"

That's not the choice we faced. School busses are very heavy and it takes a lot more than a few inches of snow to destabilize them. Now, a heavy snow or an ice storm would cause a school closure. That happened several times per winter.

Not all of MA looks like Boston. And while few of our roads were unpaved, what constituted "pavement" varied greatly. A lot of those roads were essentially dirt with a couple inches of asphalt over it, often broken to bits by frost heaves and tree roots. Plus MA roads had two things in abundance that seem to be lacking here in OH: curves and hills.

[sarge43]

13. It's not the amount of snow; it's the overall road and weather conditions.

Certainly in urban situations the risks aren't as significant except when the snow piles are so deep and numerous it makes navigating a narrow street close to impossible.

Having driven a school bus in rural NH for ten years I'm well aware a few inches of snow won't tip a long bus. However, coming down an unsanded icy lumber road with no verge on one side and trees on the other and a 60 degree curve coming up awfully fast just might. Add on 52 plus potential distractions often makes one wish for a change of undies.

All I'm say is the people who make the decision think worst possible scenario instead of "anybody'll get pissed if there's more snow days shut down".

[Deep13]

6. Um, why?

Is it really all that disruptive to take a day off due to weather? Seems like a problem that doesn't need to be fixed.

[Sweet Charming Dem]

9. When I was in school (NJ), they would build three snow days into the school year

If we went over, they'd cut Easter vacation short by a day or so. No big deal.

I know teachers were usually quite happy for snow days. My HS history teacher kept an official snow watch window in his classroom. Everytime he saw a snowflake, he'd tick it off on the sheet taped to the window.

[MiddleFingerMom]

14. I can't believe Ohio wants to promote atheism!!!!

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"SNOW DAY!!!! YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!! SNOW DAYS ARE PROOF THAT GOD LOVES US!!!!! (quoth the students AND the teachers)
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Today WOULDA/SHOULDA/COULDA been a snow day before they decided on online classes. There is no God.
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[sarge43]

19. Yup

Some road workers broke a water main near the school I drove for. No running water at the school, so send everyone home. As I drove past the workers, all the kids cheered and thanked them.

It's the simple things in life you treasure. Fred Kwan.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

15. They don't exactly go into a lot of detail on how they'll define 'online learning.'

Couldn't prepare much ahead of a sudden snow day. Sounds like they'd go totally synchronous like with Eluminate or something.

[MrScorpio]

17. And what are they going to do about the kids without PCs?

Or PCs that aren't even adequate enough.

Or who don't have a home net connection?

Sucky idea.