While I am very excited to get an early start on my holiday vacation, I am just as worried about some of the children and their families in my classroom. Did they have places to be this past weekend to wait out the harsh weather? Were those places warm and safe? Did they have and will they continue to have plenty of food? I know some of the families will be okay. But there are a few that I worry about. The worrying doesn't change their situations or improve the weather conditions. I do not have decision making power in my district and I personally did not choose to call of school Friday, today and tomorrow.
I am a little sad that I did not have the opportunity to give them their holiday presents. I also have a special something for the most awesome para educator ever, Miss A and presents from the Sunshine fund to the administrators in our building that I was in charge of passing out. I guess this year, many people will be receiving happy new year/welcome back presents. Additionally the kids had been working hard to prepare for the winter concert for their parents.
We had a non-holiday themed set of songs, complete with costumes. Hopefully, we can put something together in January.
For those of you not from around this part of the country, it basically snowed from Friday midday through Sunday afternoon. Then it rained briefly and the temperature dropped rapidly. Voila- ice, everywhere! My district called off school for today due to all of the ice on the roads and the safety concern of getting such alarge number of children to school. They then decided that tomorrow would be a "waste of resources" to go to school for one day since Wednesday is when Christmas vacation was supposed to begin. I'm thinking about this "waste of resources" idea and I am not sure that I agree completely. Even if the days before vacation are stereotyped as "light" academic days, students still receive breakfast and lunch at school. Students are still in a warm building. Students have an opportunity to share holiday traditions with one another. Teachers usually have the opportunity during these days to provide extra one-on-one attention to students because other students travel during the break. So that is all "not worth it?" I have a hard time coming to terms with the idea that providing two meals to students and a wamr space and extra attention is not worth it.
From the district's point of view, many of the buildings are old and cost a fortune to heat, especially with the heat being off since Thursday night. It be very expensive to heat them for just tomorrow. That is in addition to clearing off all the roads in front of the schools so students can board and unboard the buses safely and clearing off all the ice from all those buses so that they are safe to operate. Well I don't know what the "right" answer is, but I am grateful that I don't have to make that decision. It seems no matter what the decision is, some people are not happy.
Be safe and warm K1 children and families and enjoy the vacation and time together.
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That is a tough call. It is hard to know what is best and what to measure "best" by. I hope all of your students and their familes are safe and warm, too. There is only so much that you can do as a teacher, though I know how hard it can be to draw boundaries (there were some days when I was with my teen voices girls that i wanted to take them all home to live with me if only as a respite for a little while). If nothing else, this is a reminder to be thankful to all that you have as I am sure that all of them are thankful for all that you do.
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