a letter to the chancellor of DCPS

After a recent weather event, I finally felt the need to speak up to someone who might listen. Of course honestly, I would really love to have a few unscheduled days off like the counties around us... but this is more about the injustice felt in a classroom full of students (and myself) that recently made a dangerous walk to school on sidewalks completely covered in ice.

Hello,

I'm in my 3rd year of teaching in the DC Public School system and I just wanted to express my concern and interest in regards to who it is that is responsible for making the DCPS inclement weather closing/delay decisions?

We recently had about 2 inches of snow on a weekday that left many of the secondary roads and MOST IMPORTANTLY the sidewalks all around my neighborhood covered in snow and ice. I only live a few blocks from my school and had to make a dangerous walk on ice to school only to discover that none of the sidewalks or pavement leading up to my school had been cleared away.

Luckily, our principal, a few teachers, and some students took it upon themselves to shovel the walkways to alleviate the situation. On that particular day, many of the neighboring counties had 2 hour delays and I believe that same decision for the district would have given our local neighbors, businesses, and the weather conditions a chance to clear away some of the snow and ice that covered the sidewalks.

In my 3 years of teaching within DCPS, I have noticed a pattern of consistent inclement weather cancellations and delays in ALL of the neighboring counties around the district (Alexandria, Arlington, Montgomery, etc...) and yet DCPS remains under a normal operating schedule. Within my own classroom on these days, I get a SIGNIFICANT drop in my attendance and resentment amongst my students who come to school about the fact that they are in school while everyone else gets the day off or has a delay.

Who makes the decisions and what are the determining factors in considering cancellations and delays? Does DCPS consider the sociological impact on students/parents/staff of having all neighboring counties make different decisions than their own? Some of my fellow teachers live outside of the district and have kids attending schools in other counties which is an additional concern. My main concern though is the seeming disregard to those of us that have to walk on the sidewalks that are often the last concern for clean-up since the streets are priority number one.

I do think that at times some of the counties around the district call for cancellations a little too liberally and I realize they often cancel due to the use of buses that have to travel through secondary roads to pick up children. Most of our kids use the Metro system or walk significant distances to school and having everyone else around them not have school seems to lower morale in my school and create more resentment towards school.

I would hope that the decision makers consider the plight of the students/parents/staff in what we have to go through to make it to school during inclement weather... whether walking on ice, driving across state lines, finding sitters for our children, and having half full classes of frustrated students.

Thanks for listening to my concerns and I look forward to your response.