With more wintry weather in the forecast for the weekend, local school districts are quickly running out of snow days.
Back in the day, if that happened, the districts just tacked on some extra days to the end of the year, or took back a teacher workday or extraneous holiday, to make up the difference.
In more recent years, some school districts would whine to the state government to give them a break and allow them to not have to make up the time. (Any wonder the Chinese are winning? Think that happens over there?)
Here’s a silly suggestion: Add enough extra days, beyond the state minimum, each year, to account for all but the most nasty winters. And if the school systems don’t have to use them all (wait for a plot twist in 3, 2, 1 …) then use the leftover days for bonus instruction!
Well, that certainly wouldn’t fly in today’s environment, where public-school leaders work to ensure that no student is educated even one nanosecond beyond the absolute minimum required. Extra days of class? That’d be unthinkably revolutionary.
Sigh.
PRINT ISN’T DEAD; IT’S JUST BEING RECYCLED, ONE TRIP AT A TIME: For some reason, when I moved from Columbia Pike to the Shirlington condo lo those 20 autumns ago, I thought it a good idea to bring along, and then add to, boxes of newspaper archives from not just the Sun Gazette and Journal papers (both of which I was editing at the time), but from papers I had worked for in the past.
And finally, after a concerted if sporadic effort over the past 3 weeks, all of those newspapers, except a few I have kept for sentimental purposes, have been deposited into the recycling bins at the Arlington County Trades Center, which fortunately is less than a mile away from the home.
All part of clearing out the place in preparation for an eventual sale. And let me tell you, glad that is over. My nose is, too; the detritus of suddenly disturbed, decades-old newsprint gets up in the nooks and crannies and causes mayhem up there.
Hopefully it all gets a good new life as whatever it is recycled into.
- Scott McCaffrey