Decatur Schools Closed Friday
Decatur Metro | January 30, 2014 | 7:46 pmFrom CSD…
There will be no school for City Schools of Decatur students and staff tomorrow, Friday, January 31. All schools will be closed. We hope that road conditions for our staff living outside the City of Decatur improve over the weekend. There is a threat of refreezing overnight, which may pose a danger for our students traveling by foot, bus or car. There are heating issues with Oakhurst Elementary that will hopefully be repaired tomorrow. Please stay safe and warm!
Just crazy. The roads are fine!!!!
Well Oakhurst has no heat and many of the staff cannot make it safely to schools tomorrow. It’s about more than the roads.
From Kristen Thornton-Webb, director of Science is Fun Camp:
It’s official- the snow is really putting a dent into adults’ productivity and making the kids stir-crazy!
We can make everyone happy with engaging, fun, fascinating STEM experiments!
Register at the link below or simply email me [email protected] if you are a return camper. Ages 5-12, 10:00-3:00 (or 9:00 a.m. by request, no extra charge), $69, located at The Lutheran Church of the Messiah
Please pass it on!!
I get that some of our teachers have to commute to Decatur. But, we are a town of four square miles, whose buses offer no threat to congesting the greater metropolitan roads of Atlanta, and the City of Decatur itself opened at Noon yesterday. All of them don’t live in the City. Why are our schools held to a different standard? I would like to know how and who makes the decision for when schools will close…and whether there is parent representation in the decision making process.
I could be wrong, but I bet that part of the reason the schools aren’t open is because it is the end of the week. Is there any real sense in opening the school for one day just to head in to the weekend? Plus, there really are a few icy patches out there this morning. This whole week was basically a wash.
I also find it interesting that some people are complaining now about closings. The schools just can’t win in these situations.
Yes there is, IMO. I believe each day needs to be made up at this point. So that will be taken out of summer or spring break. That will be a big deal for families that have plans. Also, all businesses are open today, so parents need to scramble to find something.
I hope in the coming years the february break will be listed in advance as possible snow make up days. It is the silliest break out there, and if you can’t afford to go skiing or take a cruise, a real challenge to find something the kids can do that doesn’t involve a lot of screen time. Hard to even visit relatives because they are all in school or working.
Expectations sure have changed. With the possible exception of spring break, vacations during the school year were unheard of when I was a kid.
The current calendar, which I think has been approved for at least a year, does list two of the five February break days as potential make-ups. The calendar for next year has a more blanket statement that any scheduled student holiday at all can ultimately be used at the superintendent’s discretion.
I’m assuming (it’s a charitable assumption) that anyone who booked the whole week out of town was playing the odds. Worst case scenario, should those days end up getting used, they can just exercise their parental discretion to spend them out of school (perhaps learning in other ways).
I understand that having your child miss school can cause some anxiety for some, but if you have plans for February break and they use those days – go! So your child misses a few days. Ultimately it is you who makes the call and controls your life, not the school system. Or at least that’s my rule. Relax and enjoy and tutor your child if needed.
It’s true that it isn’t usually a big deal for elementary school kids to miss a few days of school. But it is for high school students. AP and certain IB classes have tests/assessments based on a certain amount of college-level material to be mastered. Some students can handle missing several days of those classes but many can’t and try hard to never miss a class. Attendance and homework can play into grades for all classes and your GPA is critical to college admissions and scholarship money. And in junior and senior year, school breaks aren’t usually for vacations–they are for college search/tour/interview trips. There’s not a lot of alternatives to our week-long breaks because you can’t sit in on a college’s classes and meet students on weekends or over the summer or winter holiday breaks.
There are some consequences for missing school. Tuition students or non-resident staff/employee children are asked to leave if they miss more than a certain number of days of school. I know many parents who have received warning letters so the required number of days is less than you’d think. Don’t know what happens to resident students who miss too many days. They may be required to disenroll and then re-enroll at whatever school has room. And of course the school system suffers financially if too many students miss too many days. Not sure what the formula is but there’s a financial incentive for schools to maintain high attendance rates.
I see you don’t care about your kids missing school, but are you also so careless with the time of your children’s’ teachers? I’m sure they’re thrilled to have to catch your little darlings up when you decide to return from your relaxing vacation.
There were more teachers and staff on the calendar committee than parents and they pushed the February break HARD. Don’t forget those 2 weird breaks cut into the summer. Therefore, I have no sympathy for the system if they complain about families actually making plans and STICKING TO THEM for the breaks. It is not always about having the money for a vacation. It is also about having the time to go see family you don’t get to see in the Summer or spending time together away from the stress of school and home.
The state BOE allows for 4 missed school days the event of emergencies,inclement weather, gas shortages, etc. Since the 2 previous days are already being made up, these days should fall under that category. Thus, CSD should not have to take away from anyone’s scheduled breaks. Chill out people! A event like this happens less than 3x per decade. Enjoy your time with your children and Quit complaining!!!
+1
Just to be clear 1) pretty much every metro school system was closed today — CSD was the rule, not the exception — and 2) as others have pointed out, more figured into the decision than the condition of the roads. Many schools (especially those that were forced to house students, teachers or other stranded folks) were under resourced or otherwise compromised after 2.5 very unorthodox days, and I know several planned to use today as an opportunity to get them ready for students again (in almost every case you’ll notice that 12-month star was asked to report).
Final chapter: Dr. Edwards is requesting that City Schools of Decatur students and staff not make up the three snow days of January 29, 30 and 31:
“Additionally, State Superintendent Dr. John Barge will bring a resolution to the State School Board that requests that the days of January 29, 30 and 31 are forgiven above and beyond the state guidelines for minimum number of hours students must attend school. This will be helpful to CSD if further winter weather affects metro-Atlanta during the coming months.
Please note that we are making up the extreme winter weather days of January 6 and 7. The first make-up day will be March 10, which was previously a Teacher Workday. Now we will have school for students on Monday, March 10. The second day will be Thursday, May 29 with the post-planning day moved to Friday, May 30 for teachers. Therefore, Thursday, May 29 is now the new last day of school.”
So February and April spring break plans, including international and college trips, are not threatened by make up days. That’s a good thing. I feel for the teachers of AP courses who are always racing to get their bright but frontal-lobe-still-developing students through the material in time for the AP exams. Three days is a lot of time to make up, especially for the half-year AP courses. Voluntary Saturday school or other special review sessions may be the trick.
I’m deeply disappointed. Just shows off Georgia’s complete lack of priority on education. Three days is a huge chunk of time. We could make up those days during February break…then if we have MORE extreme weather days, we would be able to write THOSE off. Now we’re pinning ourselves down to not have any other place to make up days than tacking them onto the end of school, which is not going to do anyone any good.
I feel bad that teachers’ ski plans over February break are more important than our kids’ education. School trips are not planned during February break (they are during spring break) so that’s not an issue. College trips–well, you can take a day off from school for those anyway, so that’s not an issue either. It boils down to “everyone’s already made plans!” as being the reason we’re stripping three days of education away from our kids. I hope the calendar committee puts a disclaimer on February break moving forward that it could be used for make-up days.
Winter is not over yet, people!
I feel the opposite than you do…I support the choice of which days and this has less to do with teachers’ plans and more to do with families’ plans.
I won’t argue that Georgia often lacks a visible commitment to education but I think, to be disappointed that the February break is remaining intact, you have to assume that what parents will be doing with their kids during that week has no educational value.
This may be true for many, but there will also be people whose trips or activities are more than just recreational. At least that’s true among quite a few folks that I know. Embracing the break as a parent doesn’t automatically equate to a belief that skiing is more important than education.
Yes, that’s true, but there are many families out there without the means to go skiing and whose kids will be sitting home staring at TV for five days when they could be in school preparing for standardized tests (we still have them even if we don’t like it), getting a good meal, and–especially for our students with learning disabilities–continuing to connect the dots in their learning. Taking a long unsupervised break right in the middle of a unit is much harder for some students than for others, whether they’re learning to read or learning stoichiometry.
Anyway, my point is really more about the fact that we could still have days we’re forced to take off, and the only place left to make them up will be at the end of school, which doesn’t do anyone any good.
They can get a good meal at the YMCA.
The YMCA serves meals?
So I’ve been told. You can also get yourself clean there.
I think you have to be a YOUNG MAN.
Well, there’s that.
I also consider 3 days of missed school to be a big deal. But I’m not sure I agree with you about a February break cancellation being just the inconvenience of missing ski trips. There is a voluntary DHS related trip this February–the trip to Spain which has a strong academic component plus involves language immersion with home stays. It’s not just a travel trip and it’s too late to get your money back. And the week breaks are key for college trips for many kids, especially those who are still learning about what college is and what will be the best fit for them. The best visiting days are non-holiday Mondays-Thursdays when students and professors are on campus and you can sit in on classes. Some high school students have a limited number of schools they are considering but many need to visit 10 or more colleges to figure out whether they want big or small, instate or out of state, liberal arts or research university, Greek life or not, women’s college or not, certain majors that are’t at all schools etc., in order to come up with the requisite 1 to 2 stretch schools, 1-2 safety schools, and 1-2 good fits with a good liklihood of acceptance.
But I do agree with you we should build in more extreme weather days. The challenge is when. Winter storms can occur between December and early March, even after the February break. The writing CRCT is in March, the other CRCTs and the EOCTs are in April. There’s only so many teacher work days you can schedule in January-March. If the February break is going to be a true fall back for making up extreme weather days, then it needs to be aggressively and repeatedly marketed in advance to teachers and parents that way, e.g. “Do not schedule any unrefundable travel that you cannot afford to cancel at the last minute” and “Given what we saw in 2011 and 2014, there’s a one in three chance of having to cancel some of the February break”. Families doing college trips could reserve those that require air travel for the April and September breaks and take care to only plan car travel for the potentially-cancellable February break.
Am I the only one who’s flabbergasted by the idea of a high school student “needing” to visit ten or more colleges? Is that typical? How do people afford that?
The hard part isn’t affording the visits, it’s the tuition! Visits can be lumped into big sweeps (hence you need the length of a school break) or with family visits, whatever. Sometimes folks wait to see where they got in but then it’s a tight squeeze between when you hear and when you have to let them know. Ten schools may be high but not really if they are spread over sophomore to senior year.
Having said this, there’s clearly students who are either so focussed and prepared or on such a tight budget that they only visit one or two colleges or do all the visiting through the annual college fair. But that’s risky for two reasons:
1) Many colleges give points to applicants who visit because it shows more interest and means the applicant knows what they are getting into. The proportion of high school grads going to college is higher than the old days but the proportion of college students finishing in 4 years is lower. Colleges are rated on their 4-year completion rates.
2) Students are more likely to make a good choice if they have visited colleges and educated themselves about it’s really about. That’s why DHS takes all high school students on a college field trip and encourages them to attend the annual college fair. Otherwise students may end up in the wrong place and drop out and/or finish in 6-7 years instead of 4 which is much more expensive. A good fit is worth it.
“or finish in 6-7 years instead of 4”
!!! My brain just esploded. If you can’t finish a 4 year degree in 4 years, your issues probably run deeper than “fit.” I’ll make clear to my kids that the tuition payments will sure as heck end in 4 years, so they had better get their degrees in that time.
Find a website that gives 4-year completion rates by college. You’ll be shocked. I know I was. It’s a big issue these days. Here’s some 4 year graduation rates:
UGA: 55%
Georgia College/Milledgeville: 36%, 57% after 6 years
Georgia Tech: 34%, 77% after 6 years
Agnes Scott: 57%
Even Emory, with its sky high costs, is only 84%
In fact, the official graduation rate used by the US Department of Education is a 6-year graduation rate as though it’s the norm. This is also the rate that colleges themselves report in their catalog and on websites.
Most parents have to limit how many years of college they can contribute to and how much they contribute per year. But you still want the best fit for your child. You don’t want them to take on unmanageable debt. Plus it’s 4-6 years of their life, which is as long as a third of their lifespan when they start college, so you hope that those years are decent ones, not miserable.
To clarify…57% is the rate for the Agnes Scott class entering 2006. The current rate is 66%.
😉
Yay! It’s a wonderful school! I toured it with my niece when she was in high school and visiting us and I fell in love with it. I’m not blaming the colleges by the way; this is just a consequence of a higher proportion of high school grads, with their still developing frontal lobes, attending college. I’m impressed with how much more colleges do now to try to support students and get them through on time–writing centers, free tutoring, career centers, etc. Of course, at those prices, they ought to………….
Total tangent from the original discussion of school closings: I sure wish that some no-frills Sam’s Club equivalent liberal arts colleges would come on the market. Colleges that look like mine did—small but no fancy recreational athletic centers that are better than most country club facilities, simple cafeteria instead of the equivalent of the Phipps Plaza food court, simple student center, etc. I think colleges are in this upward competitive spiral that is not academically necessary. To justify their high prices and stay competitive, they have to add all these amenities, which raises the costs, which…….. Even large public universities have entered the competition because they want to show that they have a geographically diverse and competitive student body. I sure wish this cycle could be broken and soon.