Fredericton — The board of directors for the Anglophone West School District voted unanimously yesterday to loosen the criteria to cancel school days due to poor weather. Under the old criteria, district administrators would cancel classes with a forecast of anything more than 1 cm of snow. The new criteria has been updated to call for cancellations when 1 mm of rain is in the forecast.
Concerned parents were present for the vote. “School is cancelled too often as it is,” exclaimed Josephine Dunne, mother of 2 elementary students. “This is just getting ridiculous!”
When asked for comment, Jean Francoise, Anglophone West superintendent, said, “We estimate that this change will save taxpayers 4.7 million dollars in 2015 alone. These savings are mainly from reduced bus maintenance costs due to school busses being on the roads far less.”
“Students already miss on average of 15-20 days per year due to weather,” she went on. “Another 15-20 isn’t going to hurt anyone. Ultimately this is going to send a message to students that we care about their mental and physical well-being; we also expect student satisfaction rates to double because of this change. Let’s be honest, we all just want to stay home on rainy days. Why would children feel differently?”
As part of this change, district teachers and administrators also don’t have to attend school on cancelled days. When pressed for comment, New Brunswick Teachers’ Association president Jeanine LeBlanc stated: “We approve of this change. New Brunswick teachers are already asked to work 5 full days a week and the only breaks they get are snow days, Christmas vacation, March Break and all summer. We support anything that makes their job easier.”
The changes take effect immediately.
I’ve heard that if it starts to rain in the afternoon that the kids will be expected to remain at the school overnight. Thankfully, each school has a secret stash of granola bars for such emergencies. Kids may be stranded at the school for days until the weather clears.
1mm of rain is acceptable to these people??? Everyone knows that if it’s a cloudy day, there’s at least a 99% chance of rain. Won’t somebody please think of the children and cancel school on overcast days as well?
– concerned/almost hysterical mother