AIBU to wonder why school is closed when there is less than an inch of snow

[Frogletmamma]

When I was little we still had to go to school if it was up to your necks. Now one flurry and it closes. To add insult to injury the neighbouring school is open!

Usually closed due to lack of staff. When I was a child many of my teachers could walk to school, they didn't drive so could only work in schools close to them. That is rarely the case now. In my career I have travelled up to an hour to get to school and although I always set off earlier if there is snow sometimes the journey time can be two hours or more just with lots of other very slow cars on the road. Sometimes I just couldn't get there at all.

It is a huge decision to close a school.In a maintained school the LA has to be informed.
The decision to close I found to be one of the biggest and most difficult, damned if you do, damned if you don't. I would agonise, make the decision and then low and behold within 10 mins find the snow has stopped. I was a HT, in charge of a school not of the weather.
Often the worst choice was deciding to stay open with staff worrying all day about how they were to get home and parents ringing constantly and turning up throughout the day to take their child home safely, cross because we hadn't closed. Whilst I had to deal with staff who also wanted to get home safely but couldn't because not enough children had left and I had to wait till last for my two hour if I could even get home minimum drive home!

People really don't think these things through, as evidenced by this thread.

1. Other countries who get lots of snow have proper budgets for gritters etc because it's worth the funds. In this.country, where council funding is shite anyway, you cant spend hundreds of thousands on the tiny off chance there might be.snow.

2. unlike the old days, living near the school, especially if it's a naice school in an expensive area, is practically impossible for most teachers. They get paid a pittance.

Bet most people whinging about snow closures would also be the first to complain if instead of keeping the local library running, their local council spent £300,000 on specialist snow stuff that might not get used for years.

It's precisely because we get so little snow that we can't "deal" with it. It's not even close to worth it for us to invest in the infrastructure required - gritters, drivers, snow chains, ploughs. If there was snow on the ground for six months a year, it would be. But for an occasional one-off it makes more sense just to stay at home.

Or, as it was put during the big London snow of several years ago: how much extra do you want to pay on your council tax every year so that you can go to work the two days in ten years this happens?

I'm in the suburbs of Birmingham not the Hebrides. All the roads have been gritted. Its not an expensive area and really there is not much snow. Ps our local library is excellent

It's often not to do with the school site itself but the route to school for staff and children. If not enough staff can get in then the school should not open. If the school is not on a bus route then the roads will not be gritted and it can make it dangerous to travel there.

In our village there are 3 schools. Two are on main roads and they are gritted but one is up a steep hill and side road that is not gritted. In the winter, if it has snowed or there is ice, that one is the most likely to close because staff can't get there and it is dangerous to drive on the roads approaching it. When the head tried to keep it open, there was damage to several cars trying to get up the hill.

For our local schools, they can only close if the head has assessed the situation. I have known the head of my daughters school to leave for work at 5 am to find out how safe it is before letting parents know if it is open or shut.

Winter tyres would solve the issue considering the amount of snow we have in this country. I used to live in Germany and we had to change our tyres during a set period. Now there, we had proper snow. And when you were snowed in it’s because there was a couple of feet of snow overnight and it hadn’t been cleared yet.

Buses. If the buses worry about running then they close the schools, to stop people getting stuck or buses having to come back to pick up kids after ten minutes because the forecast is bad.

I live in rural Yorkshire, most of the kids are bussed in to school, so if the buses don't run, the schools are shut.

Agree OP. I grew up in a rural area and remember getting the bus to secondary school in fairly deep snow. Basically as long as some buses were running, I went.

We are on about 4 main bus routes and all buses are running. Do you want to know why I'm really cross? I made mince pies for the Christmas fayre at 5am this morning and now its not happening, GRRRRR

So so many schools around here have closed!! They will feel very silly now all the snow has melted!!

I want snow
Enjoy. Eat your mince pies and put your feet up. Get the kids out and play in the snow. Chill.

Good for you Froglet.

But I'm actually talking about anywhere in the country.

EG. My DSD went to one of the best state schools in the country, in one of the most expensive places to live. (So the SE, not Scotlsnd!)

When it snowed even a little bit, the school closed.

Why??

Because the teachers had to live so far outside the town, that they simply couldn't get in. No amount of gritting the town would help them get off their ungritted side streets/country lanes 20 miles away from the school.

The reaction to snow varies from council to council.

Mine seem to shrug their shoulders, half heartedly grit a few main roads, then act surprised when schools and businesses shut down.

In the "good old days" when people lived, worked (and very often didn't drive anywhere much) in the area local to them, a few foot of snow wasn't so much of an issue.
But forcing communities to break up, rising house prices, car ownership all affect how we deal with adverse weather.

My DC's school never shuts whatever the weather. It is in a Northern English town on top of a hill.

The headmistress is ace. She will get in early and shovel snow with the caretaker :-)

Grr indeed, that is frustrating op My kids' school apparently closes if it's icy as the entrance to the school and most of the playground is on a steep slope. They try gritting it but if it's still slippery they close. Their old school on the other side of town is flat, and never closed for snow. Could it be something like access problems? Failing that, the staff are probably all knackered, and the thought of the christmas fayre pushed them over the edge

One school I worked in closed because a water pipe burst due to the freezing temperatures meaning we had no fresh running water.

Another school I worked in had to close because it was at the end of a long lane and up a steep hill. In icy conditions it was inaccessible even on foot.

Another school I worked in had to close when it was freezing because the boiler broke so we had no heating. I remember this happening quite a lot when I was a child at primary school in the 80s - the boiler, that was ancient even then, broke several times every winter. When we had a new headteacher, the first thing she did was replace the boiler and fix the leaky roof.

I'm not comparing the UK to countries like Norway who are snow bound every year. Like a pp said, Germany is FAR more set up for snow than we are and whilst they get a lot in the south for example there are also tons of areas which get the same or less that the uk.

I used to live in an area which barely saw two flakes all year, but we still had adequate snow protection PLUS we had to use winter or all weather tyres.

The UK buries its head in the sand for 50 weeks a year and then grumbles for a fortnight, only to forget it all once the snow is gone. If we had a more can-do mindset then even a small amount of prep would mean that people EXPECT to go to work, school, the shops when there's snow on the ground, so they would be prepared.

Why should school staff put themselves at risk to get into work in dangerous conditions? School isn't childcare. I wish people would remember that.

90's child here, and I remember my High school closing at lunchtime when it snowed badly, the buses had stopped and we had to walk three miles home in awful, freezing conditions in our inadequate school uniforms and school shoes. I'd never been so cold in my life.

If it's a Catholic School, the reason is more likely to be because today is a Holy day. Did the School say why they are closed?

Manic it's down to the children/parents to dress adequately for weather.

If councils dealt with snow adequately, then teachers etc wouldn't BE putting themselves at risk to get it. The problem is with the council, not the teachers.

Boys schools don't close on a whim for Holy days?!

Dh has gone into school (45 miles away) but has taken an overnight bag just in case.

No its not a holy day. Just a snow day.

Staff can't get in safely, or more forecast later which might leave them and pupils stranded, power/heating/food supplies unreliable ?

We are in N Scotland (as username suggests!) and school prides itself on the fact it has only shut once in the past 30 odd years!