As an itinerant teacher, my wife works in two different school districts. My daughter goes to school in another. The thing that would be most disruptive involves snow days.
Oh, not snow days for me. I got to leave early on a Valentine’s Day storm a few years ago – and a good thing, too, since the buses stopped running shortly thereafter – but generally, I work every day, regardless of the weather.
If wife’s school districts and daughter’s school district are all open or all closed, it’s no problem. If wife’s districts are closed but daughter’s is open, not an issue. But if either of my wife’s districts are open and my daughter’s is closed, that would mean that I would have to take a vacation day off.
The other situation involves snow days not taken. If there are no, or fewer snow days used than scheduled, there may be extra days off and that may mean me taking off in May because it DIDN’T snow. It was so much easier the year the wife and the daughter were in the same school district a couple of years back.
An interesting thing they are considering in Ohio: telecommuting to class. If they did something like that around here, it would help the students not miss so much class because of the elements. I’m not sure, though, how such a program would relieve a parent working outside from missing work, or in the alternative, dragging their children to work in a blizzard.
Here we are praying for snow. For two years, our annual equinox walk to see the sun rise has been made picturesque by the white stuff. It isn’t quite the same when it grey, cloudy and wet. Fingers crossed, we may yet have snowfall before next Thursday.
I believe that in parts of the South Island of New Zealand they also do telecommuting on snow days. I’m not sure because we never get snow in Auckland (for which I’m unfailingly grateful!). However, I remember that as a kid I listened intently to the (AM) radio in the hope my school district had declared a snow day. It seldom did, and so I learned the meaning of coping with disappointment.
telecommuting sounds like a good idea because you won’t have as much overhead and then kids could learn more
view of desert