Is there something in it for them? I’m pretty sure they get paid even if school is called off. For example today, there is snow, local colleges have announced that they will be closed. Our nearest local high school though announced there might be an early release but they hope not? And it is the Friday before spring break week off, seems like they would welcome the extra day off doesn’t it.
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Friend of mine is a teacher, snow days dont get deleted. They are tacked onto the end of the year. She wants the school year as short as possible.
Edit: to add- if only half the class shows up on a snowy day, then that’s half the work in exchange for an entire day.
Moms a principal. She’s told me in the past that if there are too many school day closures, then, by law, they have to make up days during the summer months. That means not only the kids summers will be cut short but also the teachers and ancillary staff as well. And some folks already have plans for their summer vacations.
Education must go on and if you take every opportunity to call off the school, the students wouldn’t finish the program or will have to study overtime. It has to be done when conditions are actually dangerous, like a tornado or extreme cold, but mere presence of any snow as a reason for closure looks like a tropical thing I’m too northern to understand.
school typically are required by law to provide a certain number of days of instruction. If they cancel for snow, they have to make it up elsewhere
it’s also disruptive to their staff – they have hundreds of teachers who have plans for the day – if they cancel everything gets shifted
cancelling school means parents have to arrange alternate childcare, which means many may miss work. Colleges do not have this problem
There are two reasons. The amount of cancelled lessons is counted in most places and a lot of cancelled lessons is something that can make the administration of a school look bad. The other thing is that during cancelled lessons nothing is taught but the curriculum stays the same. So teachers have to teach more in the remaining time and restructure their planning which most teachers don’t like to do.
In the US, most states require 180 school days per year, though it does vary state to state. There is typically a moderate allowance of days that can be missed due to closure without needing to make those days up. Let’s say that allowance is 7. So a school could close for up to 7 days throughout the year and would still remain on track to finish the school year on schedule.
But if they need to close for an 8th day (or more), then those additional days need to be made up. It can be made up by shortening an upcoming holiday break or by adding those days to the end of the year.
In my district, the administration tries very hard to keep schools open every scheduled day because kids living in poverty get their lunches and often breakfasts from school. No school, no food.
One reason that hasn’t been mentioned: parents get outraged when you cancel school unnecessarily.
For a significant number of parents, canceling school means they either have to stay home from work or arrange child care – at the same time everyone else is trying to do so – on a moment’s notice.
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