Minnesotans love to discuss the weather, and this winter has given us plenty to talk about. A hot topic during one of the coldest winters in years has been school closings. In January alone, many K-12 public school students were out of class for five days because of below-zero temperatures and nasty windchills. And there are two months of winter still ahead.
In the chatter about closings, some say that we've become "winter wimps'' and that the days off only give kids more opportunities to hang out at malls. And more than a few parents have complained about scrambling to make alternative child-care arrangements.
Others argue that student safety concerns did — and should always — drive school-closing decisions. They don't want kids exposed to the kind of severe cold that can cause frostbite in just a few minutes.
The caution practiced by school officials this month should be applauded. Despite the disruption, the January closings were handled appropriately. Gov. Mark Dayton made the right call to close schools statewide the first Monday of the month, when temperatures were nearly 20 below. Because some districts were still on holiday break the previous week, Dayton was concerned that superintendents might have been away.
Gubernatorial oversight of school closings is not a long-term solution, however. In fact, the last time a Minnesota governor closed schools was in the 1990s during Gov. Arne Carlson's administration. And that's as it should be; state intervention ought to be rare.
The last four school closings this month — including two this week — were rightly made by individual district leaders. Situations vary from district to district, region to region. For example, some school systems park buses indoors, while others do not. In below-zero weather, where a vehicle is parked at night can affect whether it will start in the morning. Even if buses are on time, consider the long walks some students have to bus stops.
This month's closures also highlight differences between family needs today vs. a generation or two ago. One superintendent recalled times when all weather-related closing calls were made by 6 a.m. or so the same day. That was sufficient years ago, when many moms were at home while dads went to work. But today, with so many single parents and moms and dads at work, families need as much advance notice as possible to make other arrangements.
In a recent commentary on these pages, a Minneapolis school nurse explained that even very young students are sometimes responsible for getting themselves — and sometimes their siblings — to school while parents are at work.
