I did not write the law, I am just telling you what it is. We are also not able to discharge students except in the curb lane onm the right side. If a student lives where we have to turn left we either have to discharge him well before the intersection so we have room to get in the left lane or make the turn and then let him off. We never leave room for a car to get between us and the right edge of the road although I have had people use part of the sidewalk to attempt it.
Funny, we have lots of kids that go to school in shorts at those temps. No exaggerationâŠbut the school has heat. School start time can be delayed by 1.5 hours for ice or heavy snow. Rarely cancelled.
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Our elementary schools had 6th graders as school crossing guards, if temperatures were below 10 degrees, they got hot chocolate.
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It can get a little (a lot) ridicules when they are forecasting snow here and they cancel school before it even snows and then it doesnât⊠
But we do close schools almost anytime it snows for safety reasons, my old business partner (from Detroit, and was a repo man there for 20 years) used to laugh at us until he found out the hard way when he came around a corner on his way in to the shop and slid off the road into a creek⊠He realized it is all the curves, hills and trees overhanging the roads making them very slick and dangerous, we are NOT set up to handle the ice and snow like up northâŠ
Anytime we got more than a few inches of snow we were glued to the radio hoping schools would be closed! Usually had two or three snow days per year, probably took six or more inches. Closures were not for the students, but for staff safety inasmuch as roads would not be plowed.
I was a crossing guard in 7th grade⊠but we didnât get hot chocolate!
My Ohio grade school would not close for simply cold weather and most us walked to school (uphill, BOTH ways 
) because we lived within 1 mile. Sub-zero weather for a few consecutive days was not uncommon. When we got open enrollment and more kids rode buses, schools would close for freezing rain or a couple inches of snow.
I graduate from High School back when we still had the draft. Our schools were still assigned by the area in which we lived. A few years later busing came to be in order to âbalanceâ the student population.
In elementary school we, including kindergartners, walked home for lunch, even had local TV lunchtime programming. Which, I would guess, was watched by 80+% of the kids.
That also works in reverse. One of the only two accidents I ever had was when I was driving to the school where I workedâon a day when the roads were really bad, but they failed to close the schools.
The powers-that-be do sometimes have a difficult task in this regard because they have to make their open/close/delayed opening decision many hours in advance. In the days before emails & texts, we had a âtelephone chainâ to notify employees.
The Superintendent would phone each Principal, each Principal would phone his/her VP and a couple of department heads, each department head would phone 2 or 3 teachers, and then each of those teachers had to phone another teacher.
If you were at âthe bottom of the listâ, or if someone higher-up in the telephone chain delayed their call, it is entirely possible that you would already be on the road before you got your closing/delayed opening call.
The classic failure took place one year when one of the department heads had sealed-off his kitchen the night before after painting that room, and he never heard his only phone ringing, so the people at the bottom of the list whom he was supposed to call were never notified, and they drove to a sealed building.
The call sheet stated that âif the person you are calling doesnât answer the phone, you must phone the person(s) who they were supposed to callâ, but not everyone reads instructions.
A girl in my sisterâs class did not listen to the radio in the morning. Every âsnow dayâ she walked to school to find the doors locked. Our school was combined JR/Sr High, she did that for all six years! One winter I delivered pizzas&chicken for Chicken Delight, our cars had studded snow tires , nothing stopped our deliveries!
Two of my counselees came from a family whose religious beliefs forbade radios and TVs in their home, so those two kidsâboth of whom were wonderful, high-achieving studentsâwould always find themselves in that exact situation. As soon as I became aware of this situation, I made it my business to phone their mother right after I got my closure/delayed opening call. (Apparently, telephones were âokayâ, even though their religion forbade radios & TVs)
The parents were very grateful for my help.
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We had to watch channel 5 news (CBS) in the morning for the Snow Bird report, it was like that until the schools started texting the parents, even when my daughter was in school (now 24) I remember checking the local news5 website for the snow bird reportâŠ
I can recall the days of a NYC radio station reading the lists of school closures. But, the lists were long and it required you to stay within careful earshot of the radio, lest you miss the school that you were looking for.
The lists were never alphabetical, and there was a fair amount of mispronunciation, so sometimes you werenât quite sure if what you heard was accurate. And, if those Manhattanites hadnât heard of some NJ towns, the mispronunciations were essentially impossible to understand.
Just imagine how they pronounced towns such as Piscataway, Manunka Chunk, Acquackanonk, Hockhockson, Mantoloking, Pahaquarry, Squankum, and Repaupo.
I was listening for Woodbridge, but sometimes you couldnât figure out whether they said Woodbridge, or Wood Ridgeâwhich is a totally different town.
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We would hear Marshall and go yay, then realized that was the town, not our school, John Marshall.
Technically we didnât have âschoolâ closings, we had county closings, the whole county is either open or closed, never broken up by schools, our local city or even local school zones and all the students could be perfectly safe to go back to school, but a school at the other end of the county could have bad weather/slick roads, then the whole county was out, tornado and or other damage to a school would be the only exception(s)âŠ
Not to mention that a lot of folks down south donât have all season tires. This YouTube sums it all up. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2cgtmmtsqFA&pp=ygU3SW5kb29yIFNraSBzbG9wZSBzbm93IHZlcnN1cyBhbGwgc2Vhc29uIHR5cmUgY29tcGFyaXNvbg%3D%3D
If you live anywhere where it could snow get at least an all season tires unless you really need the summer traction. Then get winter tires for winter.
Ummm, I worked for the biggest automotive tire manufacture on the planet for 17 years and still in contact with old co-workers, I can a sure you that we sell a very small % of 1 season or even 3 season tires vs all seasons tires⊠What we donât sell much of is snow tires down here in the south⊠Now some vehicles come from the factory without all seasons, not much you can do about that⊠But to say a lot of folks down south donât have all seasons is just ridiculous, you do realize not a lot of choices for non all season tires for Camryâs, Corollaâs, Civicâs and your normal everyday daily drivers⊠You do know that the temps often drops below 32 degrees here quite often in the cold months, heck we are already showing lows in the mid 30âs 1st of OctoberâŠ
Gezzz, next you gonna say we all talk funny down here in the south⊠
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Or snow birds that live in both locations. My son in lawâs father has houses in Central MD and Naples, FL. He spends the summer and hurricane season in Maryland and heads back to FL for 4 or 5 months.
To support Daveâs comments about all season tire salesâŠ
We Floridians buy all-season tires for the rain performance. All season tires have more grooves and sipes than summer tires which perform better in the frog- strangling 20 minute rain showers we get all summer.
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Yep, we got a cold snap forecast for Oct, overnight lows in the low 70sđ
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Of course. Thats why I suggested all seasons even for Floridians.