De Blasio Makes a Good Call

I don't know about you, but I just made breakfast and I'm sitting in my cozy living room drinking coffee. I'm pretty happy for 1.1 million schoolchildren and over 100,000 DOE employees who are not going in today. I heard almost immediately yesterday when de Blasio made his call to close the schools, and I ran around the halls and offices telling people. I watched kids and teachers literally jump for joy.

This is a far cry from the Klein era, when I'd be up and blogging at 4 AM wondering whether or not the schools would be open. I'd see my car snowed in and the guy on channel 2 would be shaking his head that the city had yet to make the call. It would be maybe 5 AM when they determined that yes, it was a terrible snowstorm and they were closing.

I took my dog out over an hour ago. He hates this weather and I knew it was only gonna get worse, so I dragged him out of his little bed and pulled him reluctantly outside. He still hasn't spoken to me, but I expect he'll get over it. Hopefully later my wife or kid will take him out and he'll be thankful I did so before things got so bad.

I absolutely recall days as bad as this or worse when I went in. The only concession I made was not dressing as I usually do. I figured if they made me shovel my way in and out of work that I'd dress the part. I'm very grateful, this morning, to not be in my car and listening to Mayor de Blasio announce that everyone should stay home. Instead, he actually made it possible for all of us to do so and is putting his money where his mouth is.

I understand the thought that this inconveniences parents who do have to go to work. I understand that this may cause some of them to stay home, and that there are two sides to that coin. But here in Nassau County, they've always closed the schools on days like these. People like me often had to go to work when that happened. And despite all those school closures, our island has not, in fact, broken away and floated into the Atlantic. I expect New York City will survive this day as well.

Bill de Blasio set a precedent last month when he made an early call to close the schools, a precedent he followed yesterday. He gave parents and teachers adequate notice. He didn't make them sit by the radio. He didn't make thousands of teachers get up, shovel themselves out, set out to work and turn around. That's happened to me at my chronically overcrowded school, which I've had to to report in as early as 7 AM. Now, at least, parents who need to make preparations won't need to make a mad rush at the last possible minute.

Could this be ushering in a new era of treating snow days in a manner that is not insane? We can only hope. Now if he'd just unload the Bloomberg-era DOE lunatics.

Will They or Won't They?

 Update--Mayor Bill de Blasio has closed NYC schools tomorrow, March 14th.

I'm really wondering whether they're gonna close the schools tomorrow. Snow Day Calculator says there's a 99% chance, but this is New York City, so you never really know.

I hear there will be 12-18 inches of snow. De Blasio closed them last month for far less, so perhaps that sets a precedent. I hope so. I usually go in no matter what, but I remember two nights where it took me four hours to get from my school to my home, a distance of 23 miles. Right now, I'm wondering whether that's such a good idea.

On snowy days, I like to stay home and hang out with my dog. He's just a little guy, and he's utterly bewildered by the snow. What the hell  is this stuff, he seems to wonder. Why can't he get into my backyard, which he sees as his private restroom. Why should he have to suffer the indignity of pooping on the front lawn? You don't see humans doing that, usually. Why should he have to do it?

Given the last snow day was a lot milder than many days I've gone in, I'm thinking a big snowfall will make de Blasio call Carmen Fariña and tell her no it is NOT a beautiful day and don't you dare say so. I'm in total agreement. A beautiful day is NOT a day in which you drive west on the Long Island Expressway with cars constantly crashing to your right and left. A beautiful day is NOT a day when you drive home at a speed of five miles an hour and have to pull over to manually wipe off your windshield. And a beautiful day is NOT a day when you drive in and hear the mayor, your boss, say, "Jeez it's awful out there. If you don't have to come in, for goodness sake, stay home."

On the other hand, a ridiculous snow day when only half the kids show up is a good excuse to give a ridiculous quiz that they all get a hundred on. Talk for five minutes about the wonders of art and the different forms that have existed all over the world at different times, and then ask them what color the whiteboard is. Talk about how language has shaped politics, how it forms the way you see the world, and how the Eskimos have twenty words for snow. Then ask the kids what language people speak in China. Give them ten questions like that so they get a high score and feel like it wasn't a total waste of their time coming in.

On the other hand, on days like that don't you feel like the people who didn't come in are smarter than you? I don't necessarily feel that way while I'm in the classroom, but oh, during those four hour drives home I don't feel so smart at all. And as much as I like to see the intrepid souls who are as crazy as I am on days like that, I think if I see a foot of snow outside I'm gonna give up immediately and stay home. I have a feeling that if it's that bad, de Blasio will close the schools.

One thing--last month Mike Mulgrew told the DA that we had only one snow day, and that any day more than one would have to be made up. However, I've now heard from both Mike Schirtzer and a very meticulous school secretary of my acquaintance that we have 182 days this year, and that we can actually take another without having to make it up. So let's hope Mike 2 is right and Mike 1 made a mistake. While you can never be 100% sure about Mikes, my school secretary friend knows everything, as far as I know. (Of course, that's only as far as I know, and I can't promise to know more than either Mike.)

What are you gonna do if Snowmageddon 2017 arrives tomorrow morning? Will the mayor's decision affect yours or have you already got your mind made up?

Update--My most reliable UFT source says we have TWO snow days, so we would NOT have to make up tomorrow. 

Careful What You Wish For

There are an awful lot of complaints about schools being open yesterday, and in fact there was a petition asking Mayor de Blasio to close the schools yesterday. It garnered over 40,000 signatures. Several of my members sent it to me. I work in Queens, where plowing streets is just a pipe dream, and I could see cars parked in all sorts of odd places yesterday. I could see students walking the middle of streets. It probably was not a good idea, and a whole lot of my colleagues, being smarter than I am, didn't show up at all.

My students, being ELLs, mostly showed up. There were only two students absent from my morning class of 28. Other teachers I spoke with told me they had 8 or 10 kids in their classes. The trailers, of course, were closed so we had hundreds of kids sitting in the auditorium, a place so strangely fixed for sound that I find anything resembling teaching to be impossible. So there are a lot of reasons it would've been a good idea to close the schools yesterday.

But there is one other consideration that may have eluded a lot of people, and I reminded my members who emailed me the petition. Because we are now off for both Eid and Lunar New Year, the NYC school calendar can only allow one snow day before we have to start making days up. So if yesterday were the day, that would be pretty much it.

I've gotten mixed reactions from the members who complained and sent me the petitions. Most said they were glad we didn't burn the day, as they were not inclined to use vacation days for things other than vacation. One said she would prefer coming in on a day when driving weren't hazardous, when kids weren't at risk, when she didn't have to fight hundreds of people for a parking spot, when she didn't have to improvise one that the happy-go-lucky school-based cop may or may not ticket her for.

I guess I voted by showing up. I won't argue with anyone who says those who didn't are smarter than I am. I'll just say that, after an entire day of shoveling snow, much of which was turned to slush after the inevitable street flooding we enjoy in South Freeport, I felt I needed to get my money's worth. I needed to pull my car out of that cleaned driveway and take it somewhere, i.e., to work. After all, sometimes in life, a man has to make the supreme sacrifice and go to work.

A better alternative, IMHO, may have been to utilize the delayed opening. You know, that's the thing we negotiated some time during Mike Bloomberg's tenure as Emperor, and used precisely once, during the transit strike. The thing is, when there are hazardous conditions, that makes sense. Expecting sense, of course, here in Fun City may be beyond the pale. A guidance counselor told me it took her almost a half hour to find a spot, and was on the verge of turning around when she finally nailed one. Like me, she came in an hour early. A teacher told me he skidded into a red light camera and was expecting a ticket for it. Told him to fight it via internet, but who knows?

What do you think? Would you rather we'd placed safety first, like reasonable people, and closed the schools? Would you do absolutely anything to protect your days off? Or is there a middle ground?

Why Did We Do This?

I went in this morning, and passed two accidents on my way. Several teachers in my school told me they narrowly averted disaster when a truck jackknifed on the LIE.

When I arrived an administrator, a security guard and I went out to the trailers. There was a lot of snow, but it wasn't slippery or anything. Anyone dressed for outside could handle it. Of course, a lot of kids don't dress properly. However, a girl I was kind of worried about showed up today in a winter coat rather than the hoodie she tends to favor, so that made me happy. In fact, four other kids showed to that class, and only two were late.

There didn't seem a whole lot of point in starting a lesson I'd have to repeat, so we mostly just talked. There was a pretty interesting show going on outside, what with all the people coming and going. Some custodians were out shoveling, and we couldn't help but notice that everything they cleaned turned white almost immediately. In fact, we began to see sleet and ice, and it didn't seem safe keeping the trailers open anymore.

I teach two double-period classes, and the second took place in the auditorium. I had exactly three students. Most kids I spoke with today told me of parents who forced them out the door.

I'm not altogether sure that the school hot lunch was worth the hour wait for the buses. I don't hear a whole lot of love for school lunches from my kids, who come from other countries and are nonetheless horrified by what passes for pizza in school.

I walked past classrooms with four or five kids. I saw one that appeared to have fifteen. One colleague told me she had 22 in one of her classes, and explained that was because she was incredibly popular and beloved by her students. But when she told me she had, respectively, 4, 7, 3, and 6 in her others I had to doubt her story.

The worst part of my day was when I went outside to find my car plowed in by our excellent sanitation department. They did an incredibly thorough job. I couldn't shovel it out, and I couldn't pull it out, but a very helpful custodian managed to rock it back and forth until it escaped. It took a good five minutes. I have never been stuck like that in a modern car before. Back when I was a poor musician driving $200 cars it was a way of life, but I've forgotten the art, it seems.

All in all, it was a waste of time for my students, and likely for most others. I hope they really savored that cardboard pizza, if that's why they came. Were I Carmen Fariña, and worried about kids getting lunch, I'd find a way to provide activities and serve kids lunch in their neighborhoods, rather than have them travel to city schools that may or may not be nearby.

Personally, I don't think kids learned anything today, other than we should have closed the schools.

Snow Picnic Out There

I always go in on snow days. My wife speculates it's because I'm out of my mind, and some days it's tough to maintain otherwise. It gives me something to consider while navigating the icy roads to Fun City.

I remember once driving west on the Long Island Expressway, cars crashing to my right, cars crashing to my left, and hearing then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani advising me not to come in via my AM radio. I wrote his words on the board, for the amusement of the handful of kids as crazy as me.

There is a delayed opening procedure, introduced by former chancellor Harold Levy. It's been utilized precisely once, during a transit strike. Actually, thus far it doesn't look so bad out there today. But wouldn't it have been a good idea, if they were going to open the schools last Wednesday, to at least allow for the inevitability of thousands being unable to arrive on time? Wouldn't thousands more teachers and students have shown up had they been given time to dig out, to walk through the snow, to wait for that bus or train?

Every other area school system closed. Every private school was closed. Mayor Mike "Accountability" Bloomberg (who refuses to even say where he was during Snowmageddon) didn't see fit to announce whether schools were open until 5 AM. I don't know whether he or socialite Cathie Black know there's a delayed opening procedure in place. I've seen even less evidence that they care one way or another.

If they were truly concerned about NYC public school students (We already know how they feel about teachers), they'd at least give them a fighting chance of getting in.