That old wintertime guessing game played out again earlier this week during a bitter cold snap.
Will schools be closed? Should they be closed? Why do they close? And finally, how could they close/open school?!
Madison was one of the few districts open on Monday, and if some of the commentary this sparked among parents is to be believed, sending my kids to school that day bordered on child abuse.
District attendance figures show that enough parents kept their kids home on Monday to bring the district’s absence rate to about 30 percent. Five percent or a little more is about average.
For those children who showed up, the day’s exposure to the cold was probably similar to what my kids experienced: an approximately 10-second walk to a partially warmed-up minivan and another 45-second walk from the minivan to the school doors.