AIBU to think school closures ignore parents' work commitments?

[OhNoItsThePinkyPonk]

AIBU to think that the school doesn’t take much account of parents’ need to work? Primary school have just announced they won’t be opening for the rest of the week, but it’s OK because they’ll be sending us online work for us to do with the children, and whilst they are sorry they have had to cancel sports day we shouldn’t be too upset because they’ve have rescheduled it for a couple of weeks time. Like, I totally get they have to put the safety of the children first and if it’s too hot it’s too hot, but what do they think I’m
doing when the kids are at school, preparing beautiful dinners, ensuring the craft box is topped up, pining wistfully for the moment they come home? FFS, my job obviously comes second to my children and of course I’ll cancel planned surgeries and clinics where I need to. It’s not the emergency that bothers me, it’s the blasé way in which it’s communicated as though it’s a
minor inconvenience, not a major major f’ing headache with serious second and third order effects.

phew, that’s better. Now to go and get the little darlings…

While their parents are working from home? Who is going to take them?

I stated the 1950's because you asked what did I think happened when parents didn't have a home phone and were not contactable at work by phone.

Most people were contactable by phone at home and at work by the 80's so I assumed you were going way back.

Schools are not suddenly going to get sick bays and nurses so they can keep sick children in school while parents are working. They were only ever a temporary measure until a parent arrived to pick them up anyway.

I’m not a key worker but my wages and loss of wages is just as important as key workers!

I love these hypothetical scenarios where both parents are working from a tiny bedroom in a high rise flat with a small child whose school has closed and no possible other childcare options.

In which case they can stick the kid in front of the telly with their feet in a basin of water and an ice lolly and they will still be better off than being in a boiling classroom with 30 other kids.

You're lucky that you can cancel clinics and have the authority to do that.... not everyone is so lucky, but yes I do agree with your post:)

It’s ridiculous.

I was talking to the deputy head of my kids acho this morning and she agrees. Relax uniform, provide more breaks and allow kids to fill water bottles as and when.

I spent 20 years working in the fire service, I’ve worked in 40 degree heat. We didn’t shut up shop because it got hot.

how many of those kids will be going to hot countries on holiday?

Wait for all the posts from the ‘school is not childcare’ brigade……🍿
Yanbu OP.

It's like people don't know the difference between going on holiday and being in school.

With the summer holidays coming up? When A/L entitlement is probably already stretched to the limit trying to cover seven weeks holiday? Ok then.

are they expected to sit in a small room with 30
others and limited ventilation while being expected to focus and learn when they are on holiday?

HaveYouFedTheFish

I have friends and family in German, Spain, France and the Netherlands, all have said this week they’re opening at 8 closing at 12 or closing for the week

On holiday I can lie down all day under an umbrella wearing just 3 tiny patches of cloth and sip iced drinks and move barely an inch whilst the children splash in cooling water all day and nap in an AC'd room whenever they like.

That's what you are all doing at school all day isn't it?

A kid tipped his water bottle on his desk and splashed around in that a bit, so it's almost identical.

feel your pain! We’re off Thursday and Friday anyway as heading to a premier inn and theme park (pray for me) but I’ve had to take parental leave tomorrow. Gonna make the most of it though! No home learning, paddling pool out and Aperol spritz o clock with some tunes blasting. One of the good things about being full time office based is that it forces me to take parental leave for this kind of thing, when I worked from home I’d feel obliged to muddle through and now I can’t!

Really? So all families should contain at least one parent who stays at home?
All families should contain fit and able grandparents and/or other family members?
Parents should have unlimited annual leave to spread across the whole year including the approximately 12 weeks the schools are already off.
All parents employers should offer unlimited paid parental leave when required.

Oh and all of the above should be available at a minutes notice ‘just in case’.

You’re living in dreamland. Or some middle class utopia where every household contains one parent who works and the other stays home waiting for their school children who aren’t there six hours of the day. Better not work ‘just in case’ that school-that-isn’t childcare needs to send them home.

No one parent is working from home. 3 kids. I know them they aren't hypothetical

Schools don’t care about parents work commitments full stop. They never have and never will.

You obviously don’t work 🙄

It’s a shit situation op. I work in a school and it’s so ridiculously hot in there. No air con or ceiling fans. We have huge windows that just absorb heat and a metal roof. It was horrible today and I’m dreading the increasing heat for the rest of the week.
The government need to invest money in to schools so that they’re more suitable for this extreme heat, even just ceiling fans would make a massive difference, we all know this won’t happen.
We can’t even afford the staff we need for the next academic year let alone the price of some sort of cooling system so this is only going to get worse

My kids somehow managed to stay in school all day without complaining. Wore PEs kits and one got at ice cream on the way home … the other is 14 so walked, no drama. They’ll go again tomorrow.

41 degrees? Where are you? It’s not been THAT hot today!
I take it you never go abroad if you vomit so easily in heat.

Utterly moronic decision for my ones school, it's less than a decade old, why wasn't it built with air con? Plus it's 1 degree warmer tomorrow & Thurs (school closed) than today (open)

So I loose 2 days work, great!

Midlands. Temp inside was 10 degrees warmer than outside.

It's hotter inside than outside.

We're on a red weather warning from midnight. Today my classroom was 33 degrees. 32 children, very hot and stuffy.
Windows open, pe kits, unlimited water, limited screens, one fan. It was really hard, no learning really happened, several children felt unwell.
We are experiencing record breaking temperatures and schools are not suitable for this heat.
Yes, it's a pita for parents. But unfortunately unavoidable. If you want to complain, try your MP.