My kids are gleeful at a day off school

Last updated on: February 24, 2015 at 11:21 pm by Jane the Actuary

My kids are gleeful at a day off school 2015-02-24T23:21:57-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Me, not so much.

Now, thankfully, we don’t live in an area where they close schools at the first snowflake, as was the case for my brother’s family in Oklahoma, where they simply have no plowing or salting equipment. But, as I imagine is the case for the majority of kids in the Chicago area, the forecasted windchills of as low as -30 have cancelled schools, both for my older son, at a public high school, and my younger boys, at a parochial school. (Actual current conditions are -3, with claimed windchill of -24.)

And for us, this is an irritant, but can be managed with my existing work schedule, and is easier than the days I’d miss work when one of them had to stay home from day care, in the past.

But: as far as my younger boys’ school is concerned, I have a hard time imagining that there’s any kid who would genuinely be obliged to walk to school, and be inappropriately dressed for the weather. Parents who make the effort to send their kids to a tuition-requiring school are also capable of driving them if needed, even for those who don’t do so ordinarily, and in any case have the sense to ensure that they dress warmly. I suspect that a fair number of families will be at the sledding hill later today.

For my older son’s school (the one with the two worlds of middle-class kids and Mexican immigrant kids), I can easily see that there are quite likely to be kids who do walk to school every day, have no other option but to walk to school, and may indeed come without being properly dressed for the weather (not so much due to a lack of hats, gloves, and warm coats as a lack of a parent enforcing the wearing of such).

But this is again an issue of risk, and recognizing some risks but not others. After all, the schools can easily see the risk of “what if a kid gets frostbite or hypothermia on their way to school?” (though, let’s face it, it’d have to be much colder and the walk extremely long for this to happen, as opposed to just being very unpleasantly cold), or, in the case of a snow day, “what if a kid is in a car accident on the way to school?” or even, “what if a kid, walking on the street because sidewalks aren’t shoveled, is hit by a car?”

Is this a significant risk? Presumably they don’t even have the data to assess this, if they’ve been closing schools so consistently in the meantime. But who wants to be the one to break away, leave school open (even with a statement of “it’ll be an excused absence if you can’t come”), and risk a lawsuit?

And yet at the same time, there are also real risks and harms to closing school. Sure, not for middle-class families with middle-class jobs and understanding employers, or with a stay-at-home mom who’s happy to take the kids to the sledding hill. But how many kids in poor families just get left at home unsupervised because mom has to work, one way or the other (and most likely, there isn’t a dad around in any case)? And how much harm does this cause? — either from kids left at home at young ages and not able to take care of themselves properly, or older kids getting themselves into trouble? But these dangers aren’t taken into the equation.

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