From CSD….
City Schools of Decatur will be closed Thursday, February 26, for the safety of our students and staff due to potential icy conditions. All employees who work 225 days or more should report at 11 am if conditions are safe for travel.
Atlanta and DeKalb are also closed on Thursday.
We have so much snow on our back yard polar bears are moving in.
Has COD heard of weather.com hourly forecast? The weather has not gone below 32 degrees all day long. In fact it was in the 40s.
Today was a waste of a school day and I hope tomorrow is not another one.
This is just ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous – “due to potential icy conditions” for whom?? This is has become a joke – and I’m not laughing anymore. I want a REAL reason other than being scared of what MIGHT happen. Ready for someone to explain why???
Just like last year, when COD was closed for cold one day and just like this year, was closed one day for rain. Great job.
I’m in the Exumas and its 83…
Maybe a kid hacked the system and this really is a joke?
I do not believe this is a decision the superintendent takes lightly. Some models are still calling for 1-3″ of snow. If she were to wait until 6 am and cancel, then she’d be criticized for waiting too late. She also has to take into account the large percentage of staff that work outside of COD. Would a school full of subs be beneficial? It’s 2 days out of an entire year! Enjoy the time with your children, ad stop being so critical.
Except all the computer models have the snow ending at midnight. And every meteorologist on TV is saying not to expect accumulation inside the perimeter on roadways. This information was out more than 12 hours in advance of a school day which seems just as ample as 14 hours to tell people they have to stay home from work again.
And please don’t turn this into a “you need to enjoy your kids” debate. That kinda stings those people with no vacation time and need a full paycheck to survive.
I totally agree with your last sentence. Assuming that everyone is privileged enough to kick back and enjoy their kids is, well, privileged, and does not reflect the reality of most people. I will be home with my kids but likely working and ignoring them. Thanks for pointing that out.
But it won’t get down to 32 degrees!
But there are staff and teachers who live in places like Gwinnett and Cobb and North Fulton where there is more snow and ice. Suzanne Kennedy at CH lives in Oconee. A number of paras live outside the perimeter I know for sure. Most people who work in our schools don’t live here.
That is quite a commute. I am assuming that is is the Lake Oconee area of Greensboro, GA that you are saying she drives in from. That is very impressive.
Its not a matter of enjoying the days off – its about having some conviction, being bold, and watching the weather like the rest of us. They make decisions that affect 1000’s of families based on “potential” not facts – 1 -3 inches of snow is NOTHING… our COD needs to stop this idiocy and call school when it is warranted this is no where near that…its RAINING out!
It’s two days…so far. Will it be two more next week?
I get the commuting issues for the staff, but can’t imagine all that many live far enough north to have been impacted by this event.
Snowpacalypse has thrown what used to be sound reasoning about closings/delays out the window. That’s the only conclusion I can draw.
Amen!!
dude that is low. Everyone here loves their kids. Some people have to work, for various reasons.
Watch out for puddles. It’s dangerous out there.
And you want more of my tax dollars!? I’m going to look for private daycare…
Perhaps Dr. Edwards should take a leave of absence until she completes third grade science. She closed school two days in a row for the “potential” of ice when the forecasts were predicting above freezing temps. Further, in both instances, the forecasts for the following day had been improving over the last several hours before she made the two terrible decisions.
Just like last year. Remember the “cold” day. Then there was the “rain” day….. Now this year’s great decisions (one “rain” day yesterday and I am not sure what to call this day as there is not even rain). Decisions that inconvenience hundreds, if not thousands of parents. My iPhone pretty much called an accurate forecast. Maybe it should be in charge of cancelling school.
MudJam 2K15!
Just walked up to Avondale MARTA station. No ice, no snow, all roads fine. MARTA running on time. Just damp and cool temperatures. Nice job COD. I understand Gwinnett schools are in session. Isn’t Gwinnett north of here? Everybody enjoy your cool, damp day. (i.e. Not a SNOW day.)
A weather report stated this morning that if the system moved just 15 miles south last night, the entire metro area would have been blanketed.
And they could have cancelled school this morning based on current, accurate information.
These types of decisions used to be made at 6 am the morning of. Not sure why that has changed and why CSD feels the need to make decisions 8-12 hours in advance on an admittedly “potential” situation.
This was an embarrassing decision last night, made all the more so by the light of day.
So lets talk solutions so this craziness doesn’t continue to happen year after year. Whens the next CSD board meeting? This has to stop!
There’s certain things for which I hold CSD and/or School Board members responsible and alway will. In the case of winter weather, I blame the region as much as I blame any particular school system. If CSD were located in Colorado, I believe it would make different decisions. It’s hard for a school system to operate independently of a a declared state of emergency and widespread school, business, and government closings.
Sorry, but you are just enabling them. We can and should hold them accountable and expect them to make better decisions, notwithstanding the fact that others may be making the same bad decisions. If they weren’t so determined to cancel a day early, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
+1.
I repeat, Gwinnett County Schools are in session today. Gwinnett, north of here & outside of the Perimeter “heat” island. Obviously, GCS have iPhones to get accurate wx forecasts.
I’m pretty sure that I have little or no enabling power or other influence with CSD! If I did, I have a list of higher priority items. But I have no problem with other parents pushing this issue. Maybe it will work. But you have to pick your battles and I think this one has enough different external drivers and agendas that it will be hard to make a difference. After last year’s snowpocalyse, school systems are going to tend to inconvenience a million working parents to avoid accusations that they are responsible for one child stuck on a bus or in a school or one teacher spending the night on the highway or having a car accident. The memory of last year may fade over time and the embarrassment of false alarms may start to change the milieu in which school closure decisions are made. I remember a time when CSD was usually the last local system to call for a snow day.
Hate to pile on here, but the decisions to close the schools the last two days are asinine. These officials should really be taken to task. If anything, CSD should have a much higher bar for closing schools than any other school system in metro-Atlanta, or GA for that matter. This is a 4 square mile city, not a far flung rural county. If there was an emergency, most parents could walk to school, pick up their kid, and walk home. It’s stupid to compare a mountain county school system to CSD under some scenario where our kids would have to “sleep on the bus” if it got stuck. I doubt the busses here travel more than 2 miles from any stop in the city. The temperatures never got below freezing and the precipitation yesterday did not even start till 2.
As far as employees, let them make judgment calls as to whether they can come in. Don’t make decisions for thousands of other families based on a few employees who commute. BTW, I commute to Forsyth, and the roads up her are 100% fine right now.
I amazed you commute to Forsyth. Seriously. I would never have the fortitude or patience.
Once you get past 285, it is a really easy commute because it is against traffic. I go 85, not 400.
The only legitimate reason I can think of (okay, this was my wife’s counterpount to my rant last night) is that enough teachers/staff have to commute from areas north of 285, and such travel could be dangerous for them. I wouldn’t expect there to be that many, but there could be. Only so many subs you can call in.
Gwinnett is open regular hours so I am not buying the argument about staff commutes. Decatur should have delayed an hour or so at most, but not closed. very very lame.
+1
Once upon a time, they could look out the window at 5:30 a.m. and see if any potential snow actually fell. I understand there’s pressure to let everyone know as early as possible, but when you close school because of what MIGHT happen and wake up to a perfectly normal day, you just look silly.
The best part will be when they add 15 minutes to the school day for the rest of the year, thinking that an extra 2 minutes of each class will make a difference.
I agree that this is an ineffective way to make up the instructional time. I think it’s all about meeting state requirements.
That extra 15 was a joke last year as Oakhurst had ‘stop, drop & read’. Great effective ‘teaching’ time.
And don’t get me started on the wasted hours watching movies!
But these are the best schools in the universe! How can that be?
I think we have a wonderful school district, but the reaction to this weather has been ridiculous.
First… why not simply delay school by two hours? When I was growing up in Washington, they did that all the time. Better than missing the day.
Second… since so much of this seems to be fueled by “but the teachers have terrible commutes!” then fine. Cancel the earlier scheduled “teacher work days” that happen later in the year. Tell the teachers this is their work day, they can stay home and “telecommute.” This won’t prevent the unnecessary canceling of school, but at least we’ll get back the days later down the road.
Yesterday was wet and cold and miserable. That shouldn’t be all it takes to cancel school.
If we listen to the reasons being told to us by CSD and what are being discussed here, state mandated, reaction to other school districts and city of Atlanta, teachers not being able to drive in from far areas it all adds up to weak leadership, poor decision making, and excuses. I applaud GCS for staying open, show some toughness, bold intelligent (based on facts) decision making, confidence, and fortitude – traits I want exhibited by teachers and students…the CSD administrators certainly didn’t exhibit any of these..
Can we not squabble like the Gwinnettians, please? http://www.ajc.com/news/weather/wow-only-gwinnett-social-media-reactions-districts/nkJ6s/
@YouCan’tWin
They used to cancel school at 6 in the morning but in those days fewer moms were working. Now I think the goal is to give people enough notice so that they can line up alternative child care. That being said, by the time they called school last night, the forecast for Atlanta was already looking pretty clear.
Fauxpocolypse.
thank you!
I’m just relieved we’ll be in school tomorrow! I understand how inconvenient it is for working families. We’re a two parent working household as well. However, I find this criticism a little over the top. Words like “enabling” and “go to the board” are, quite frankly, ridiculous. The superintendent takes more into account than we know, and it’s not a decision I would want to make. We are so lucky to live in an area that has some of the best schools in the state. We’ve even been visited by Obama. I believe our superintendent and school system does a fabulous job and is always putting students and staff first. In hindsight, a two hour delay may have been more appropriate, but who am I to judge? I don’t have all of the information I’m sure she was being bombarded with. Going to the board is silly. My sister lives in North Ga and they’ve missed more than 2 weeks this year. Many of those days turned out to be duds as well. We’ve missed 2 days… 2! Yes they weren’t necessary, but she was going based on multiple weather reports. You want to talk “enabling”, are you going to stop watching the local news and weather? Because if we’re being honest, it’s their job to get this right, and they didn’t -AGAIN. You’re enabling them by continuing to pay their salaries with your viewership. And there were still conflicting reports of how cold it would be overnight at midnight last night ranging from 31-33. It’s done, let’s move on and stop trying to find someone to crucify.
You are all over the place. You seem to be saying yes they used bad judgment but it is wrong for people to state their opinions about it. I disagree. This is an opinion board, and school administrators are not above criticism (even if Obama came once). The weather forecasts I saw never showed the temps getting below freezing. Even if the worst case scenario was 31 in the report you saw, the temp was rebounding to the mid to upper 30s by 7 am.
Its a good school system because parents are concerned, involved and engaged. They want excellence and demand accountability. Its not putting students first to cancel school every time it rains if there is a chance the temp may go below freezing. It rains a lot in Georgia in Jan-Feb and the temp often goes below freezing.
Actually, I’m not “all over the place,” and the school system doesn’t cancel school every time there’s a cold rain. Monday night into Tues. am there was a winter weather advisory with cold rain and no delay. The point I’m trying to make is that while it turned out to be nothing, I have every confidence the school system had more information than the avg. person and has the safety of thousands to consider. I’m sure they did the best they could with the information they had, just as they do their best for our kids daily. And there were still at least 2 reports that it wouldn’t rise above freezing until 9 am.