greatnoreaster's Blog

This is a follow up to another fellow blogger on this site Doug Melegari who had a great post the other day "You decide: Were good decisions made yesterday? The arguments of both sides". March 17th, with regards to school districts in making the call to dismiss students early this past Friday during the severe winter storm.  It could be blamed on the media outlets and the forecasters.  Lets face it, every media outlet had something different with regards to the prediction of Friday's mess.  But is it really the fault of the media?  Or, is it poor planning by the school district itself.  Face it, weather has never been an exact science.  Not every forecast comes out right.  As meteorologist Rob Guarino from Fox29 pointed out about this last stomr, "a matter of 2 degrees made the difference from this being a crippling ice storm which would have resulted in 3 million or greater without power, or a 20+ inch street closing snowstorm. 

All excuses aside,  doesn't  the school district have to take some responsibility here.  No matter which way you look at it, a storm was coming, and for the most part, each station had some type of frozen precipitation in their forecast.  Whether the call was for 1 inch or 6 inches, shouldn't we call take into consideration that the weather has its own mind made up on what it will deliver.  You would think by now that most districts would have a better plan in place ready to go at all times if such an event takes on different characteristics than first predicted. 

I can speak for my sons school district "Colonial Schools" of Plymouth Whitemarsh who put the wheels in motion rather quickly and did not hesitate to close down early for the good and welfare of students and staff.   They took into consideration the rapidly changing conditions as of 10am that morning and gave the green light for an 11 - 11:30 dismissal for all students.  The point here is we can use the weather outlets as a needed tool for guidance but need to have "real time" preparedness in place as needed.  I would rather my school district see that the weather was going downhill rather quickly and pull the trigger in closing early, then to keep schools open the rest of the day and put the students welfare in jeopardy. 

We have seen too many incidents take place that were a result from lack of preparedness.  With spring around the corner and school to let out soon for the summer, now is the time to put those plans together for the next upcoming school year. 

Please feel free to add your comments or suggestions and thanks for reading..

~kjc~