Today was a school closure day or a “snow day” for my district.  A missed snow day for me because I’m out of town, but my student teacher’s first as a “teacher”.  I was reading some posts on social media this morning with the usual “yay it’s snow day” from fellow teachers, but then I read one where a gentleman was going off on teachers for getting a day off when he, as a taxpayer, was paying for them to be off while he had to be at work.  In other words, teachers were basically  getting a day off and getting paid for it.  While nothing anybody said seemed to make a dent in his perspective, I thought I would address this issue as a person who has been in the middle of the education profession for nearly 30 years.

First and foremost, snow days aren’t so teachers don’t have to drive in the snow.  Don’t get me wrong – I HATE driving when it’s slick outside.  It’s totally stressful.  But I can do it, just like anyone else.  And I admit that I love the surprise in the middle of the week when I can sleep in and then catch up on all the things I haven’t been able to do at home because of all the time I spend on school things. What we need to understand is that when snow days are called, it is not for the teachers, it is for the students and their safety. Is it always the perfect call?  Well no, it’s the WEATHER.

In our district, there is a large percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunches and live at the poverty level.  So many of these students must walk to school and many do not have warm clothing to wear – no coats, gloves, hats, etc.  All it takes is a below zero windchill and we’re talking frostbite.  It’s not just a couple of inches of snow we’re talking here.  Another thing to consider is that because our high schools are spread apart and students may attend a high school out of their neighborhood, many of those students drive.  Sixteen year olds, some driving on slick roads for the first time.  Can their parents drive them?  Maybe.  Or should a bus full of special needs kids take the chance of having an accident?  Maybe the bus driver is great but the person who hits them isn’t.  The last little bit of sleet/snow last week caused two accidents within the 8 minutes it takes me to get home from school, one right in front of the middle school.

And teachers don’t get a paid day off.  Teachers contracts cover a certain number of days we must teach which is determined by the department of education.  We must fulfill those number of days and so most districts pad that number in case of school closure days.  If the district goes over this, the schools must make up the time.  The last time that happened, we had to add 15 minutes to every day of school for three weeks.  We don’t get that time off.  In any other profession, is something happens and you can’t make it to work, you don’t have to make up that time.

The other argument from this gentleman was that all teachers have to do is work 3/4 of a year and we get paid a years worth of salary, (which he kept reminding us he pays us as a taxpayer).  Yes, that would be wonderful if it were true.  My official hours at school are 8:15-3:35 with a half hour unpaid lunch.  That is what I’m paid for contractually.  I rarely leave before 4:30 and some days it’s 5:30-6:00.  I have come in on weekends and holidays because that time you see is my actual teaching time.  While I do get some prep time, it’s not enough.  So my own time is used to write lesson plans, grade, do budgets to order equipment and music, send home communications, prepare music for class and for choir, type up programs, fill out (required) surveys, write separate lesson plans for special needs students, create assessments and the list goes on and on.  This doesn’t include all of the required meetings and professional development. If you want to look at that as how I fill up the other quarter of my year, that works fine with me and if that’s the truth, I’m earning every penny of my paycheck.

Like all my teacher friends and colleagues, we knew what we were getting into so I’m not complaining.  I’m just not sure we knew there would be so much disrespect and lack of understanding from people who probably went through the public school system themselves and now apparently are able to hold down a job thanks in part to that education, but we knew we were doing it for kids.  Because as teachers who love kids, we understand that EVERYTHING we do has to revolve around what is best for kids.  What we teach, how we teach, how we model our own behavior, how high our expectations are for all of them and how we work to keep them safe.  And that includes the occasional snow day, something that is taken very seriously by the people who have to make that decision based on something as fickle as the weather.  It is not a decision made in isolation but it IS a decision that considers the safety of the most important commodity in our profession – the students.