Friday, December 12, 2008

I Love Where I Live, But...

Our county - Kanawha (pronounced CAN-aw-uh) - waits 'til the very last possible second to announce school closings or delays.

The Evil Twin woke me up at the usual time this morning and I, in turn, woke up Buddy to get him ready for school. While he was eating breakfast, I glanced out the window and saw snow on the grass, cars, roof-tops... So, I figured I should check the local weather channel online to see if school was even in session.

Buddy goes to a private school that follows our county schedule... Unless our county public schools have a teacher in-service day and in that case, they follow the next county over. Confused? Yep, me too.

I never know what the public school is doing because I don't have a kid in public school (yet). So, I checked the school info and Kanawha AND Putnam were on a 2 hour delay.

I tell Buddy to get back in bed and I do the same. I woke back up when I heard Sissy on the baby monitor. I got back on the local channel website to see if there were any changes - like I said, they all like to make last minute decisions. So, I check and Kanawha is still listed as a 2 hour delay, but Putnam was listed as closed. Hmmm. What to do?

I decided to wing it and assume it was still a 2 hour delay. That didn't make Buddy very happy when I had to wake him up the 2nd time...

It didn't make ME very happy either. I really don't want to have to do school pick up if it's icy out there. (the Evil Twin called his office and said he'd be a little late, so he could still take Buddy in this morning - he doesn't like the idea of me driving with both kids if the weather is bad).

Ugh... time to get in the shower, I suppose. At least it's Friday! :-)

23 comments:

  1. Just keep the kid at home and make cookies.

    Love, Buddy

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  2. There's nothing like a good snow day!
    My kids were so bummed out the other day when it snowed here - they wanted a snow day. I told them they don't have snow days - they get hurricane days....
    I'm glad the ET took over the driving job - stay home and be safe!

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  3. when i was in highschool i lived like... 10 minutes away so i'd walk. in the blizzard of 96 i go there and they put us in the cafeteria to wait for the 2 hour delay... to that i said "hellznaw" and tried to go home. they wouldn't let me. "it's not safe out there"...

    but i really wanted to go home and drink coffee....

    well.. an hour later they announce that school's closed and everyone get the hell out...

    so i ask the principal.. "but... isn't it not safe....?"

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  4. Anonymous - he actually asked me to call him in sick. I gave it a brief thought and then, decided that would be dishonest: Teaching moment! LOL.

    Momma - When we lived in Kansas, we got "heat" days, never snow days. Some schools in the district didn't have AC (ours did), but if it climbed to well over 100 degrees, school would be closed. Blizzard? No problem, come on in!

    fattie20XL - Makes ya wonder who's in charge of these decisions....

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  5. We have a local "phone tree" that comes directly from the school superintendents office. We received a call at 8 pm last night of a 2 hour delay...at 6 am we get the mechanical voice telling us "cancelled". We may have had an inch of snow, but the icy roads were the worst. Saves me from sliding on these bald tires to get to the bus stop - yippee!! Blueberry muffin day.

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  6. You think a computer would send out automatic emails/phone calls to update on delays/school closings. Nice you get out of driving on bad days though :)

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  7. Awwww. Evil Twin is so sweet, your one lucky Chica. Be careful out there !!!!!!

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  8. Another bad thing about calling those so late is that many teachers are already on the road. Frustrating.

    Oh, well -- that's not a problem in my new digs. We just don't do snow days, unless it's really REALLY bad. If Jesus could walk on water, CCHS students and teachers can drive on ice. :P

    (At least I can make the call and not get in trouble if I decide it's too bad to drive.)

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  9. I completely understand. I'm a teacher and I teach at Riverside High School. We start the earliest in the county. It makes it hard to know what is going on because they normally don't make the call until 5:30ish. By that time, I'm up and at 'em. However, luckily they made the call today at 5:15 and I was able to sleep in!!!

    You can get email or text notifications about county closings, even multiple county closings. Go to wvde.state.wv.us Click on the weather postings icon. At the bottom of the page it give you a link to follow to do this. It's pretty awesome.

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  10. themom - the public school families get calls here, too. They don't know we exist (yet!) :-)

    Ron - see above. Buddy will be at public school next year, so we should get the "heads up" call.

    The Girl - he is really sweet. It's just wet out there now where it's all trying to melt.

    Rebecca - I heard that about CCHS (no snow days). That and $$$ = Buddy goes to public middle school.

    Chez - thanks for the link. I know it will come in handy for the rest of the winter! :-)

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  11. We were closed today, to my surprise. Our call tree went into effect at 6am this morning and I got a call from the class mom.

    The local news sent a text message to my phone saying we were closed, but never DID list it on the closings on TV. Good thing I signed up for the service last night!

    About 2:00pm I got another text saying that the district we live in was on two hour delay. Gee, thanks. A little late...

    Why is this so hard for them???
    Be careful - it's bad out there!

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  12. When I was in school, the call was made by the county school sup't. If he could make it from A to B (a certain portion of his road), school was in session.

    We once had to battle a 23" snow storm on a Monday morning. Five or six (out of 8-9) school buses went off the road. "Mine" hit a church. We made it to school in time to turn around and go home.

    I'm glad things have changed so much over the years!

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  13. send an email to:
    listserv@listserv.wvnet.edu

    and put this in the body:
    subscribe k12-kanawha-closings

    and they'll automagically send you an email with closings and delays.

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  14. LOL to the first commenter!

    I'm so glad my days of dealing with all that are over. We lived 13 miles outta town, so the hassles were many just to get to the bus stop on days like this, only to turn around and go home. This was back in BC time too (Before Cellphones, lol!) They wouldn't work where we lived anyway.

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  15. No kids in school....Idaho? Snowing. Lots. It's gonna be a long winter.

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  16. Brrrr! I hate hate hate driving when it's likely that the dreaded black ice is out there...somewhere...lurking and looking for my car tires.

    Be safe. Tomorrow it can be as snowy as it wants.

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  17. LOL!!! I would have bitten you if you woke me up twice and insisted on staying in bed! lol

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  18. I try to make it an absolute rule to STAY IN BED if it:

    1. Snows

    2. Rains

    3. Is Dark.

    I have truency problems at school-imagine that.

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  19. MsPulp - I don't know why it's difficult. If the roads are icy, cancel school! Duh!

    Renn - You're not kidding! That's so scary (and senseless, if you just went back home anyway).

    WVHillbilly - I'm the Chez also gave me that info and I signed up - Thanks to both of you for that!

    Carolyn - At least we only live less than 2 miles from the school!

    rosemary - I hope it's not another one like last year for you all.

    BB - I had to laugh at your comment, but only because the black ice is all the Evil Twin talks about if it's snowy. He can say "black ice" 100 times in one paragraph. LOL. I think it's supposed to warm up tomorrow. Whew!

    Sabrae - LOL! I didn't want to get up either, but....

    Lorrie - LOL... I wish I could do that too! One of these days, both my kids will be in school and I can crawl back in bed after they get to school. :-)

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  20. I soooo miss snow days. They don't really have them here - the whole "Texas tough" mentality. Or at least I think that is what it is, but at any rate we get some hellacious ice storms and the schools never close. The last time I walked Natalie to school because we only live a block away.

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  21. We don't really get that. If snow sticks, we're out!

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  22. I'm so happy for you that you have 21 rockin comments - You Go Gurrrrrl!

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  23. Alex - when I lived in the "true" South (AL and GA), ice storms were a big deal. I guess not so much now?

    honeywine - Where you are, I can definitely see that...I lived that for many years and YEARN to get back.

    Momma - The comments are the BEST part of this whole crazy thing. YOU and all the rest make me laugh like you wouldn't believe!

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