Middle school teacher Deven Black , who commutes from Nyack, wrote after he learned Cathie Black s 5

Bucking a regional trend , Chancellor Cathie Black announced early this morning that schools would open as usual this morning. She later added that after-school activities and sports will take place as planned.
But that doesn t mean that today will be a regular school day. We re hearing from teachers in our comments and on Twitter that snow is wreaking car rental in florida havoc on their schools. And in the Community section, high school teacher Dana Lawit writes that having low attendance is just as disruptive as having an actual snow day.  Send us your stories and pictures .
A little later, he wrote , Wow. 26 teachers absent. Wow. Twenty minutes later, he updated that tally: Scratch that. Make that 30. 30! As the school day began, he wrote once more: So far, 10 out of 32 students present.
car rental in florida Middle school teacher Deven Black , who commutes car rental in florida from Nyack, wrote after he learned Cathie Black s 5 a.m. decision, I just got notice that NYC schools will be open. To get to school on time I would have had to leave 45 mins ago. Why do they wait so long?
A little while later, he revealed his plans for the day. I ve been trying to call sub-central as required for a half hour and the line is constantly busy, he wrote . I guess I m not the only one not going in.
Teacher C , who teaches science in Brooklyn, went to school, but she wasn t anticipating all of her students to do the same thing. I hope I win the How many kids will actually show up today? bet, she wrote . I guessed 65% of our enrollment.
And students who do show up might not be prepared. car rental in florida A city student (and Justin Bieber fan) who posts Twitter updates as RunAfterBiebs wrote this morning, WTF MAN. Theres a freaking snow storm and the mayor opened up schools. I did no h.w and my parents car rental in florida are making me go. WAHHH IM ABOUT 2 FLIP.
We re also hearing from parents who report smooth sailing to their children s schools today. This was arguably the easiest commute (and yes, we commute) my child and I have had all school year, wrote Tim in a comment on GothamSchools. From what we could see, the highways are absolutely spotless, the major arterial streets are just about clear, all of our neighborhood's and our school's neighborhood's secondary streets were clear, the Parks Dept and MTA had gotten to many sidewalks and staircases, and any sidewalk in front of a business was clear.
I have two students. Ninety-nine percent of our staff is here but 80 percent of our kids aren t. Many teachers live in Westchester or above at our school and those are the ones who aren t here today.
The majority of the teachers at my school live in the suburbs and in NJ. Guess what? NONE of us were able to make it in. Waiting until after 5am to make the announcement that schools car rental in florida were open is absurd. car rental in florida Personally, in order to be at work on time, I needed to leave my home at 4am today because of the weather. Main roads may be clear. Secondary and tertiary are not. Did the school buses manage to pick up ALL of their students without incident? This would be interesting car rental in florida to know.
As for the mayor, he needs to move to the north Bronx to see the reality of the situation. car rental in florida Streets are clogged with unplowed snow. Sidewalks have not been cleaned. It s a mess everywhere you turn. And he expected us to be there on time .he needs to lay off of the crack pipe.
I am one of those suburban teachers who took the day, mainly because my home school district closed last night and my 3 kids are home today. My husband came home from his midnight shift exhausted from dealing with weather issues (weather is his business, LOL), then having to dig his car out at work and dig another space to put it at home. Plus, he has to go back to work tonight. He was home about 2hr late, meaning I couldn t have left the house to drive in to the City until about 8:30.
Offite Staff, if you examine car rental in florida how things actually are rather than dwell on how bad they might have been, or how bad they were during the 12/26 blizzard, it probably makes more sense to ask Do one third of our student body and staff have a good reason for not being here today?
The parent with the nickname Mama Bear left a comment in the Rise Shine posting that was probably more quote-worthy than mine, at least in its implications: if only we could get a critical mass of parents to be as vocal and angry about important things like class size, PCBs, or a more easily navigated middle school/high school application process as they are on the issue of weather-related school closings/nonclosings!
I made it into work today, but, the staff members at my school who live in LI and and other far away were not able to make it, and, wisely stayed home.  Like many of the students and other folks I saw, I had to walk on the street to be able to make it to work.  This is unsafe.  Add in that most people don t get winter tires here and don t know how to drive on ice and snow covered street Bloomberg and Black are playing Russian Roulette with the safety of 1 million students (well, maybe 1/2 million who bothered to go to school).
And, for what?  You can t teach a real class with 30% to 50% of your students, so, what exactly was the point of this?  Yet more evidence that Bloomberg et al are not working with teachers and students, but, playing politics.
John, I m sorry, car rental in florida but Offite Staff s lament Why are schools open today? was most certainly a dwelling . This was a garden-variety northeastern snow event that was ably tackled car rental in florida by the MTA, DSNY, etc. By his own admission, 2/3 of the staff and teachers did show up, so it doesn t make a lot of sense to focus on the negative.
As a side note, I predict that today there will be a direct correlation between school achievement and student attendance i.e., Stuy, Mark Twain, most every elementary school in District 26, e.g., will have 90%+ of the students in seats.
The mayor showed his attitude by thanking custodians car rental in florida and principals and not even mentioning teachers in his press conference. Only when a reporter asked him about the hardship of teachers and he said some teachers couldent make it tough. car rental in florida He made it seem like hey who cares. car rental in florida They could have allowed a grace period for teachers therefore they are not marked late which can lead to being docked and add up. Lateness car rental in florida can lead to U ratings. Many students are not even in school car rental in florida and do not want to do work because they were forced to go to school.
Why is it such a bad thing that the schools be open? For those two-thirds of students who can make it in, some extra studying, more in-depth analysis of a subject, or more personal attention can never be a bad thing. I m not saying anyone should risk their life to get to work or school, but if we re talking about leaving half-an-hour to an hour earlier than normal, is that really too much to ask? True, a normal class day would not be useful since so many of the students will be absent, but surely educators are creative enough to come up with something useful and fun to occupy and educate the 66% who are present. I know my parents (who are both teachers) have had to use imagination and improvisation to teach their class for a variety of reasons over the years weather not even topping the list.
On my way to school, streets were not all cleared and sidewalks were definitely not cleared.  We start at 9, some schools car rental in florida start at 7, so, it was even worse at that.  It was clearly unsafe driving conditions.  I m from Canada, we are used to getting way more snow than this, and, this would have been a snow day.
I do think it s worth dwelling because I feel like they have decided to send kids to school in unsafe conditions. car rental in florida  If they are too incompetent to make these decisions or if this is politically motivated, it s worth discussing.
Also, do you know how much it costs a school to hire a substitute?  That comes out of a schools annual budget.  For some schools, this could be a 5k hit for what amounts to a worthless instructional day due to shoddy attendance.
Floyd, according to the NWS, most of the five boroughs got appreciably car rental in florida less snow than the outlying areas (a third as much as the worst-hit parts of the area) and, give credit where it is due, the snow-clearing process here worked beautifully. I am sure that some areas are better off than others, but in my travels this a.m. that took me to a wide spectrum of neighborhoods in three boroughs, I saw conditions that appeared just fine for a school day. I don t think that every single surface has to be completely cleared of snow to accomplish this: this is New York City and it s January, after all.
You certainly could be right about political car rental in florida motivations in fact, when my oldest child asked me last night why the decision wasn t being made until 5 a.m., I answered flatly, He doesn t want to give teachers the satisfaction of sleeping in, and he doesn t care about you because you can t vote. But even if he had a plan to punish teachers and endanger children, it was foiled by the fine work of the DSNY and the light and fluffy composition of the snow.
They should pass a law which requires all New York City public workers have to live within three miles of where they work, then we wouldn t even have to worry about not making it to work now would we?
From my years of experience many students who show up to school on a day like this shut down. When you have a class that is half full or less the remaining students do not have the incentive the work (I disagree but some of it is understandable). There is even a greater possibility of having discipline problems because car rental in florida the students are far less focused. It is rare for me take a day off because of the snow (the first time in ten years). Also I live out on the island. In the past I was able to get to the LIRR but today there was only limited service. The contradictory communication by the mayor to the public (weather emergency but schools are open) was pathetic. He needs to be consistent throughout so parents and teachers are not livid about what happened today.
I m at school now and yeah, it was a boneheaded decision f