To Close Or Not To Close

It may not rank among their biggest responsibilities but again this week we learned that it’s never an easy decision for School Administrators to decide whether or not to close school because of the weather. Record-breaking heat on Monday and Tuesday found most schools without air conditioned classrooms going to shortened days. Of course some parents complained that schools should have been closed but that would have meant extending the year to get the mandatory 180 days required by the state. With graduation ceremonies and other planned events that was not practical and would have caused a logistical nightmare. Other parents felt the kids should have just suffered, partly because they were not prepared for the schedule changes and partly because they recall schools days without air conditioning when they were young although probably never as hot as what we experienced earlier this week.

The decisions of administrators who decided on early dismissals were not the only ones questioned. One who runs a district in which the schools are air conditioned and were opened said he received complaints because parents didn’t even want to send their children out of the house because of the heat. When he would tell them that the safest place for the students to be was in school with supervision he found himself second guessed time and time again.

This issue also brought up the question by some of why air conditioning is not installed in all schools and the answer is really easy…money. Not only would it be very expensive to install and maintain, how many days during the course of an average school year do you think you need air conditioning in the classrooms? The answer is only a handful so it simply does not make sense.

What does is how school administrators handled the situation this week. Common sense prevailed, the health and welfare of children was the priority
and things are back to normal…whatever that means.