Josh Wagstaff
Project 2
April 29, 2015
Schools vs. Mother Nature
My major is teaching High School history, I wanted to know what it would take
for a snowstorm to cancel school. As both of my parents are educators I used them as a
resource to find out more on this. My father is a Junior High Principal so I mainly asked
him what it would take.
There weren’t any articles on the Internet that were mainly focused on Utah and
the way they go about deciding how or when school should be cancelled. So after asking
a Utah Principal I find out that in Utah the schools rarely cancel school due to storms. For
a snowstorm they will only cancel if there is no way for the school buses to drive safely.
This is truly never a problem here in Utah because we never get enough snow that the
snowplows cant control the removal from the streets. The Districts will give the
principals of each school the right to cancel individual schools if they feel that its
necessary. The principals must get the approval from the District saying that canceling
school that day is all right.
Now lets take for instance back East in the Boston, New York area when they had
those crazy snowstorms. They closed everything from schools to shops, closing all the
streets so that the snowplows could remove the snow much easier. For that area the must
get anywhere form a foot to two feet or more of snow to typically close the schools down.
Where as here in Utah it is stated that it can typically take more than two feet of snow to
close schools.
As we look at the two scenarios from the storms we get here in Utah and the
storms the Boston-New York area get we can see a difference. While in my lifetime I
have never seen one storm drop anywhere form two to five feet of snow in one storm.
When I saw the pictures from the Boston storm I was thinking it would be crazy if
schools and teachers expected their students to get to school on time or at all. We can see
in the picture that this woman is walking with her child to get places. I would go ahead
and say that her car is most likely trapped in the snow-covered cars. There is a reason the
cancel school back East and not very often here.
I for one as a teacher am glad to live in Utah where we don’t get storms that drop
that much snow in such a short amount of time. It would be hard for me and anyone else
to get to the school. Also make sure we end school when we are supposed to, not forced
to make up those “snow days” that we missed. Although it maybe nice to get a break in
the winter, it sure would be rough to stay on my teaching schedule. So next time you
want to complain about not having a “snow day” remember how much snow it does take
and ask yourself, could I really go and do anything anyways.