On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:49:20 -0600, Jules wrote:

On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:55:52 +0000, Tim W wrote:
I vaguely recall that my school was probably only closed for about 1 day
ever due to people not being able to get in. It did close a few other days
in bad weather, but that was due to the heating breaking down (ah, council
maintained boilers....)

These days, it seems to be several days each year. Trouble is half the staff
in our local school live miles away and the half that live locally can't
open the school, presumably because they can't technically cover all the
required functions.

To be fair, that happens here too sometimes, even though we *know* we're
going to be snow-covered for several months of the year. I suppose that
below a certain number of teachers, they can't run the whole school (as
you say) - but merging classes doesn't really help as it diverts too much
from the planned teaching to really be useful; it's no great loss just to
shut the place.

Unfortunately it is a great loss. Even keeping the kids there and just
allowing them to play is worthwhile. Take my son's primary school - 250
kids can't go to school (no notice at all), so probably a couple of hundred
parents suddenly have to find alternative childcare or take the day off
(now three days) damaging businesses. Luckily my office is shut and if it
wasn't my parents are not far away, but others are not so lucky.

People arrange their working lives around school drop off and pick up times
(my wife works part time specifically for this reason) and sudden changes
are a major problem for many.

SteveW