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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think the school should have shut from this morning

16 replies

Charliefarlie1192 · 21/01/2013 11:10

It's snowing heavily here. Roads are bad and were when I got up at 7am. School is open so I took ds and got he bus to work an hour away. School are making the decision whether to close at lunchtime!! But not until it's actually lunchtime! I will have a 20 min walk to bus and they only run every hour and then it's an hours journey! Aibu to think they should have shut all day!?

OP posts:

Flisspaps · 21/01/2013 11:16

YABU. They cannot base their decision on your particular circumstances. There may well be LOTS of students and staff who can get there and back safely.

throckenholt · 21/01/2013 11:20

It must be a terrible job to make that decision - they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. And often they are basing it on uncertain forecasts (because as yet we don't have good working models with good enough resolution to forecast for a given locality).

They won't throw them out of school unless they have somewhere to go - there will be more than one in the same situation.

VinegarTits · 21/01/2013 11:22

of course they should have shut, and they should have taken your journey to work into account, how bloody inconsiderate of them!

Original poster

Charliefarlie1192 · 21/01/2013 11:23

I'm not just referring to my own journey plenty of parents will need to travel

OP posts:

Catsdontcare · 21/01/2013 11:23

In your situation I would have made the decision to just keep them off rather than having to faff around

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 21/01/2013 11:24

YABU!!! How do you think people cope in countries which have snow all the time.

It's a school day....schools should be open!

ExitPursuedByABear · 21/01/2013 11:26

I am in DD's bad books as I forced her to go to school this morning

All the local schools have closed, but her school is in the next town, the roads are clear and the buses were running, so cannot understand why loads of people have kept their children at home.

Namby bloody pambys.

Floralnomad · 21/01/2013 11:29

YABU the school will be well aware that it may take a while for all the parents to get back to collect their children so they're not likely to say we're closing and you've only got 10 minutes to get here! Many people will have dropped off and gone in to work , which is how it should be . This country tends to grind to a halt much too easily.

simplesusan · 21/01/2013 11:31

op- I don't think YABU.
We had this last time.
We live on top of a very, very steep hill.
The council do not clear the snow or grit.
Myself and dh have cleared the cul de sac and drive gritted, put salt down etc etc.
The school is very remote.
My dh took dd and before leaving her asked the head, are you staying open all day or is there any chance at all that school will close early?
He told the head that due to conditions he would not leave dd at school if there was even the remotest chance that school would close early. The head emphatically said school will remain open all day.
Dh's vehicle then got stuck in the snow on the wau back and he had to abandon it.
Precisely 15 after he arrived home we got the call. Come and collect dd the school is closing.

dayshiftdoris · 21/01/2013 14:08

YANBU...

I have kept my child off because of that nonsense idea...

Infact the time it happened to me I was going into work on my day off as I was one of few midwives who lived in walking distance to the maty unit so called them and offered... I was told yes please as the numbers were only safe because night staff were still there at 8.30am and they had staff stranded in cars all over the county who had tried to get in (some like me not rostered)

Then my son's school pulled that one (90% of schools were shut) and when I explained I was told he would go down as unauthorised...

Then they sent out text messages at 10.40 to say they were closing at 11am ... and no it had not started snowing again!

Take a risk by all means but factor in the children / staff staying there all day or it really is not worth any risk...

KellyElly · 21/01/2013 14:52

YANBU. It's been snowing most of the weekend in many places. Of course it's sensible to make the call to close the school for the day either on Sunday or early today. If it had just started snowing today then fine, but the school should have had a fair idea by first thing this morning.

KellyElly · 21/01/2013 14:54

You have to make a judgement call on whether or not you can get your kids to school safely, make it your decision and not the schools. There will be plenty of people who can get there ok so why should they shut just because you can't. I think at many schools it's because the teachers can't get in or will have problems getting home as opposed to how the parents and children will get there.

firawla · 21/01/2013 14:57

Op I think yanbu - as you are saying they either close it or dont, but dont faff around changing their mind half way through. seems fair enough

EggRules · 21/01/2013 15:12

yanbu

A lot of schools closed here on Friday at 1pm. I was still stuck on the bus at 2:15pm. The bus service were reducing service and curtailing normal routes because 'schools had closed' . A lot of people commute for 1 1.2 hours to work.

It would be much easier to play for a whole day than trying to squash and outbound and home commute into a ridiculously small time frame. I'd rather DS's school didn't open at all. If they close at 10:30 am, I may not have arrived at work yet.

scaevola · 21/01/2013 15:18

I think if schools are going to close early, they should give parents at least an hour's notice.

And have a contingency plan for normal time pick ups, as there are bound to be some who can't make it (own difficult journey, a need to extract themselves from work or other activities which others may be depending on, in meeting and not getting notification text promptly etc), and usual emergency contacts may be snow-disrupted too.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 21/01/2013 15:20

A couple of years back our school was closed but the next day it was open.
Another text sent saying school was definately open. (I work 3 days so this was a non-working day) We walked , normally 20 minutes at a good walking speed. So in the snow/ice more like 40 minutes (hilly here too)

All the way to school it was heavy snow. Then waiting for the teachers to arrive still snowing heavily.

They could've said "Oh it doesn't look like this is stopping. Take your DC home".

No.

I walked home, another 35-40 minutes.
At 10am , a phone call. "We're closing now"

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