The Search for Miss Direction: The Snow Day that Wasn't

I have a serious bone to pick with the Farmington Public School District this evening. I know last night I jokingly said that my kids HAD to go back to school today, I didn't think the school district meant that quite as literally as they ended up taking.

When I was up around 6:30 this morning I was shocked to see that school wasn't cancelled. We had at least 5 inches of snow fall since yesterday and it was continuing to come down and blow this morning. Grant and I had a quick pow-wow where I told him not only was I not 100% comfortable in being out and driving in the mess this morning but I really as even less comfortable with him driving his car to work in it. So he decided to take Noah and then Kayla to school and we'd re-evaluate.

Upon coming home shortly after he told me the roads were "OK", left me my car and headed off to work. I was working hard on cleaning the house and then headed out to pick up Kayla shortly before noon. Uggghhh, what a mess!

I'm not sure a plow had been down Ten Mile for quite some time and the area that has a 45 mph speed limit did not exceed 20 mph the whole way to get the Bean. I saw more than one car spin out and it's only a little over a mile drive from my house to the school. I was appalled at the thought of all the driving that had occurred prior to this point to get kiddos to school. The elementary's start last around here and the high schools start before 8am. The thought of newly licensed drivers out in this before it was light outside made me want to scream. And the buses, oy vey! If I had known how bad it was out there my twosome definitely wouldn't have gone today regardless if some brainiac at FPS thought they should.

I've now learned that at least part of the reason for school being in session today was for FPS to 'save face' Apparently we are one of the only districts that actually went back to school today in the first place, most don't start until Monday. People have not been happy with this decision since the school calendar was first released. So the District decided they were going to stick to their guns and make sure there was school today come hell or high water apparently (or really snowy roads!).

But oh, it gets better.

So this afternoon as I'm here keeping an eye on the time I need to go and get Noah, I get an email saying there will be NO SCHOOL tomorrow. Huh????? A perusal of the FPS facebook page turned up the fact that the district was closing school due to the Chill Advisory that had been issued for tomorrow morning. In other words, because it might be too cold. What? Better yet, the forecast for next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday has us at even colder temperatures than tomorrow which means my kids won't be at school for the next week at this rate ;-)

OK, so here's me on my soap box about the whole situation. The roads this morning, for someone with experience, yes, were driveable. But that doesn't mean you SHOULD be driving on them. The City of Farmington was under a Snow Emergency for crying out loud but my kids were at school! There are calamity days built into the school calendar for a reason - use them. This was a dangerous circumstance in the first place, adding buses, inexperienced drivers and additional traffic to the road this morning was a failure of epic proportions. FPS should be ashamed.

Phew, can you tell I'm a little miffed?

(Side note, again if I had realized how bad the roads were beyond the "they're OK" that I had gotten from Grant, I'd have pulled my Mom Trump Card and they'd have been home today anyway. I do believe we as the parents have the final say.)

In lighter news, I've had a whole slew of characters visit today, my house is (finally) sparkly clean again, all the laundry is caught up, we had a new dinner that was a hit (BBQ Turkey in mini pita pockets!) and I've gotten a few other loose ends tied up today. A frustrating day perhaps, but not completely unproductive.

So looks like it'll be me and my favorite twosome again tomorrow. We've decided not to tell them there's no school tomorrow in hopes of actually getting them in bed and back on a bit of a routine. Thinking it might be the perfect day for a movie picnic! Until then...