Students in the Ridgefield School District will be going home early due to what the district desctibes as a "wintry forecast for our area." The early dismissal times are:
10:55 a.m. for Ridgefield High School
11:30 a.m. for East Ridge Middle School, Scotts Ridge Middle School
12:05 p.m. for BES, RES, SES
12:40 p.m. BMES, FES, VPES
According to the National Weather Service: “Total snow accumulations should range from less than an inch along the immediate coastline…to 1 to 2 inches farther inland.”
But why send the students home at 11 am when the snow is falling? The weather service says the snow will stop by noon and then it will rain all afternoon, washing away the snow and making the roads much safer. Why send the students home now when the roads are at their "worst"?
PS: I'm concerned about the safety of the RIdgefield school children. Sorry if that troubles you.
No The points raised above are relevant. It is possible to make a wrong decision here. Even though, you want to make it seem as though she is in no win situation. If the snow does stop, as forecast at 1230, then she made a bad decision. If the snow gets worse and worse and is bad roads at 230--then she made correct call. She can win--when the decision was the correct one. But saying she cant --just means you want to agree with her , no matter what.
HAVE SOME PERSONAL responsibility!
If it was raining last Tuesday and you needed an umbrella, did you go out of your house with an umbrella today, because after all, it's Tuesday again... and all Tuesdays are the same right? As for the 47 school districts who dismissed early today, there are over 180 school districts in Connecticut. You think 25% closing early means they are correct and the vast majority of 75% is wrong? Interesting logic you have.
11:44 am on Tuesday, November 27, 2012 Oh and I guess the other 47 school districts in CT were incorrect with early dismissals too. ha then the 124 other districts that didnt dismiss were what? right or wrong?
Another thing, why do people always want to do exactly what others do? One school district closes, then others want to close too. One family buys an SUV, quick, you better buy an SUV too. One family joins Silver Spring Country Club, quick, you better spend your daughter's college fund and join too. Must people always be exactly like everyone else? Are we that insecure? What happens when we all hit 70 years old? A good friend dies and quick, everyone else should die too...........
I received an email at 12:09pm announcing that schools were going out on early dismissal. The decision had been made hours earlier. What gives??
5:27 pm on Saturday, October 27, 2012 Deb Low might as well cancel school of r Monay! I doubt they will have no school for the week! This well worded post by "S" just before Sandy giving advice to Deb Low on school closing? Wow--- I guess "S" didnt think Deb could make the decision on her own....but now faults those who doubt Deb Low. Weird person for sure
VP parent - google and you will find CT school closings :-)
But if we had waited until the normal closing time, the snow had tapered off, the all important temperature had risen above freezing and the roads were no longer slippery. Notice how the ridgefield press didn't report a single difficulty for any cars at the normal 2:00 to 4:00 dismissal time. Why? Because the roads were safer. It played out exactly how the weather reports said it would. After reading these weather reports yesterday morning, I suggested it would be safer to keep the students in school for the afternoon. I called it exactly right BEFORE IT HAPPENED. This is what I expect our town leaders to do.
1:17 pm on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 According to the US News, Ridgefield is #3 in CT and #226 in the nation. We have already surpassed all but 2 schools in the state. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/connecticut Cooper, for your own sake and the sake of your children, please don't misunderstand the US News rankings. They are not a measure of academic success. They are more a measure of student attendance. Look at Connecticut's #1 and #2 schools according to US News, CIBA and Conrad. Have you ever heard of them? If you look just at academic data for the top 25 Connecticut schools mentioned by US News, CIBA and Conrad rank 24th and 25th. They are at the bottom of the heap. Yet they win the overall prize of being 1st and 2nd for Connecticut in the full US News ranking. This is because the US News ranking system is based not on academics, but on attendance. Ridgefield is ranked #3 by US News. This means Ridgefield had really good attendance at the AP exams. But academicaly... eh.... not so good. So Cooper, don't fool yourself into thinking the US News ranking means Ridgefield has been doing well academically. It would be like having your child come home with all grades being "C" on his report card, and then bragging that your child is doing really great in school because he got a 100%... on his attendance record.
As for what the bus drivers think about the school closings, I did not realize that this all important constituency was determining whether my child would get an education. We had a chance to have one full week in Novermber without any days off or early dismissal, but we blew it over a total non-event. All sources were predicting less than 1" of snow during the day, the radar was fairly tame and that's what we got - lengthy but meaningless snow showers. By law, all school buses in the state have chains available and frankly there needs to be a lot of snow to make driving a 10 wheel vehicle with chains unsafe. I have lived in Scandanavia, Vermont and Montana as well as spending a fair bit of time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so I am quite certain buses can be handled when there is snow on the road and any driver who is not up to that probably shouldn't be driving a bus on a good day. As for spending time with your own children, I suppose there are those who don't do enough of that but I am not one - I am in fact a stay at home father who spends all day every day with at least 2 of my children. That has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with whether I want the school leadership to set a bad example for my kids by teaching them to fear weather rather than manage it.