I've heard of that, but I don't think any of the districts in my area (WI) follow that policy. We had off today, and school was just called off for tomorrow. I'm actually at school right now, but I'm the only one here. Teachers get the day off, too!
I heard that one district in my area is doing that tomorrow, but most allow the teachers to take the day off too. We actually had a teacher work day last week, in which the kids weren't even scheduled to come, and we got a call saying that we should home. Admin usually still has to work, but not teachers. Although, today was so bad, they actually closed the admin office too.
If we miss a lot of school for snow during the school year, we will have to go in sometimes for PD days.
That is normal practice for North Carolina. They would take away our next work day. Then 'snow day' would become our workday, and the next workday would become a regular school day. In my 6 years in NC, only twice did teachers have the day off, and that was pretty much because we were out of work days. We had to make school up on Saturday
It depends in my part of NC. Sometimes it is everyone that gets off. Sometimes it is an optional workday for teachers. One time, and I'm still PO'd about this, it was a mandatory work day for teachers. I was new so I went in. About half the staff was out. They didn't take away any of our teacher workdays, having the students make up our missed day then. Toward the end of the pay period it was announced that the teachers that were out had a free day off. Those of us idiots that went in and actually worked (and had to do stuff for outside our rooms because of failing systems) basically gave a day to the district.
Now that NC requires 185 student days instead of 180, teachers will get the day off of more. That law pretty much took the 5 'flexible' work days out of the schedule.
We only do that in a few instances. We have three workdays without kids, and we have used them on snow days without kids.
That would never happen in my area. If there's enough snow on the ground that it's unsafe for the kids to come in, then I don't see why it would be safe enough for the teachers to travel.
It doesn't make sense to me. In fact, I find it INCREDIBLY disrespectful in bad weather. If we had to go in today despite school being cancelled, we would have to go in on the make-up day as well. Doesn't seem right... If we had to go in today as "professional development", that would be a joke. Guests and plans obviously wouldn't be available.
It was like that in my county until a teacher died on the way to work. Immediately after they made snow days optional for teachers. The family of the teacher sued, and now it's absolutely forbidden to come in on a snow day.
Only one district I know has called in anyone when the schools closed, but that was the maintenance staff. I'm thinking that they're asked to come in to help deal with possible frozen pipes.
I have been in a district that made us come in on snow days. It was good and bad. You got some quiet work time and didn't have to make up the snow days. But the weather was awful to drive in!! I am now in a district where I get to stay home, if I want to on a snow day!
Obviously this isn't the case today, but what do district do when teachers legitimately can't make it to school? I live out in the country, and my road isn't a high priority for plowing, so it is conceivable that the road would be impassable.
We once had it that the kids had off and teachers had a two hour delay. But, if we hadn't come in at all it would have been a full day make up at the end of the year to get us to our stated number of days in our contract. So, it's happened, but that's once in five years that I know of.
You would have to take a sick day. My P was great because she'd let us make up the time after school/before school. Until someone lied about their make-up hours. That ended that.
Denver public schools does this often (that's not where I work, but I live in the area). On the news they frequently announce that school is "optional" for students and that "central office staff" can work from home. Obviously, the teachers still have to come in.
Where I used to work, school was never cancelled. Parents had the opportunity to keep their kids home if they wanted, but school was always open. Teachers were required to report. If you had trouble getting in, that wasn't an excuse. If you didn't make it in by end of day, they docked you a day's pay. Calling in sick also wasn't an option. A district near me, after a particularly bad storm, reported that they had had double the amount of people calling in sick that day than normal. The public went witch-hunt crazy, calling teachers lazy and thieves (for "stealing" their salary that day for work they didn't do). The district required every teacher who called in sick that day to provide a doctor's note.
My first principal considered a snow day a "work from home day" she figured we'd do something work related. Whether we did or not didn't matter. The only people who go in on our snow days is the building engineer and security. We've gotten emails from them letting us know that they are there & that the building is open. He's also reminding us that the salt isn't working and to be careful in the parking lots and on the sidewalk. I'm usually pretty good about knowing if the forecast is severe enough that a snow day might be called. I may take work home when I normally wouldn't.
We had to go in the past two days even though school was closed for the kids. The first day was due to icy conditions. The second day was due to subzero temperatures. We were only allowed to work in our rooms for about an hour or so each day AFTER staff development on testing procedures and classroom management. We have to make the "snow days" up when the kiddos do.
It was -46C with the wind on Monday so school was cancelled. All employees were expected to report to school.
When I was a child and they closed the school due to wind chill, I was told it was because the cost of heating the schools would be too high and that it would be impossible to really heat the schools. If that is true then it makes no sense that the districts want teachers to come in. The reason I even asked at the time was because it was very possible to get to the schools on the days canceled-clear days with little snow.
Let me clarify our "staff report" policy. We are in an area with mountains and valleys. We have one school district that serves the whole county. Many times a snow day is called with NOTHING on the roads in the part of the county where I live. Staff is reporting on days that the main roads are clear, but the busses can't run. Of course, teachers who live on the mountains can choose not to come in if they want, but most do since they're used to those conditions on a normal basis. We can do this three to five times per school year because the teachers attend on DAYS, but the students attend on MINUTES. So, we go a longer day every day to bank time for such instances.
A lot of teachers were wondering the same thing...we found out that the days we have set aside in the calendar as make up days are actually paid days- even if we don't use them. Apparently having these "free" days was a compromise in lieu of a pay raise about 20 years ago In the Super's newsletter today he talked about the reasons staff were called in on those two days- the district had some time-sensitive items that needed to be taken care of (grade cards- which really were a non-issue since we just had a prep day on the 2nd, and a new middle school opening). He also mentioned how he knows that all of our teachers would be happy to sacrifice for the benefit of the students. :lol: Not even sure what that has to do with anything...but whatever. We're happy to find out we were paid for it, but still disappointed that WE had to get OUR kids out in the sub-zero temps after finding childcare last minute...
