Free Essay

Cancelling School

In:

Submitted By pkambour
Words 547
Pages 3
Canceling School
In the article, For Mayor, Keeping Schools Open Brings Another Headache, Michael Grynbaum reported that the new Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio and the schools Chancellor, Carmen Farina made the decision last Wednesday to keep NYC schools open on Thursday in the wake of the impending snow storm. The decision to keep schools open set off a firestorm of criticism and the Mayor found himself being publically called out by Al Roker of the Today Show. (Grynbaum, 2013)
NYC schools rarely close and have only done so on 11 occasions over the last 40 years. Mayor de Blasio defended himself saying, “It would be nice if we got a video the night before of what the next day looks like”. (Grynbaum, 2013) That remark was met with criticism from Al Roker who stated, “Mr. Mayor, I could never run NYC, but I know when it’s time to keep kids home from school.” (Grynbaum, 2013)
The decision to close schools or keep them open during inclement weather is a question that many districts are facing across the country this winter. School districts throughout Indiana are trying to figure out how they will make up the lost school days to meet the 180 requirement. I understand Al Roker’s comments that the schools probably should have been closed. But, sometimes I think we lose sight of other consequences of closing schools.
In my position, I worked with the NYC Department of Education for 6 years. Their student population is larger than the city of Indianapolis at 1,000,000+ children. It may be easy for someone like Mr. Roker who has the personal resources to criticize the Mayor and Chancellor for the decision to keep schools open however, there are other considerations. What about the parents who have to go to work and can’t stay home with their children or students who get their only meals from school?
Cancell
In addition to the impending weather, the Mayor and his team took into consideration the complaints they received from parents about closing schools at the last minute. That last minute decision leaves parents scrambling to find baby sitters. There are parents who cannot afford to miss work and those children and in many cases would be left at home alone. Some parents defended the Mayor’s decision for exactly these reasons. (Grynbaum, 2013)
I believe that based on severity of the conditions on Thursday, the Mayor should have reversed his decision and closed schools early Thursday morning. Many students and teachers were unable to make into school and buses became stuck with kids stranded aboard. (Grynbaum, 2013) However, we have to remember that the decision to close schools or to keep them open is a complicated one and have consequences either way. I understand that not all parents have the same resources and that keeping schools open serves more than one purpose. At the end of the day, we as parents make the final decision to send our children to school, regardless of a school district’s decision to stay open.

References
Grynbaum, M. (2013, February 13). For Mayor, Keeping Schools Open Brings Another Headache. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/nyregion/for-mayor-keeping-schools-open-brings-another-headache.html

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Eating Habits and Academic Performance of Hrm Students

...On becoming a teacher… By Mary Ann C. Dela Cruz Looking back to the past, I remember the time when my mother told me that it is time for me to go to school to study. I am excited! I enjoy looking into my new pad, notebooks, pencil, and other things that my mother bought me, especially with my new shoes and uniforms. I told to myself, I will enjoy studying as I will learn new things and meet new friends. And when the first day of school starts, I woke up early, ate my breakfast, took a bath, and wore my new uniform and shoes. In few minutes, I am now ready to go to school. Like my other cousins, we are all excited to go to school and meet my first teacher. That day is so special to me, our teacher taught us to how to greet her and our classmates, introduce ourselves to others, and later, she taught us how to sing, count, and the ABCs. I enjoyed my first day and as days passed, I learned more things and observed my teacher on her next move and what is the next instruction to be given to us. Day by day, our activities are getting harder as more things are new to me. I also noticed the different attitudes of my classmates for some our crying looking for their parent. I am just quiet observing them, but what caught my attention is how our teacher reacts on the situations. How she pampered those little kids crying and how she patiently teaches us. There are times that I am thinking how great she was. It seems that she can not to feel the long hours of teaching...

Words: 887 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Administrator and Teacher Interview

...Administrator and Teacher Interview Administrator and Teacher Interview Administration and Teacher Interview I remember sitting in the Principles Office one day during recess unsure of why she would want to meet with me. My knees were knocking, my palms were damp, and you could sense the amount of fear that was present in my body. As Ms. Bagakowski called me into her office she reassured me that this was a friendly visit and not one of discipline. She wanted to ask if I would be okay with moving into a different class because I was struggling in my current class. As I look back now on the experience I understand more of the reasons behind the switch and I also understand the role that both my Teacher and the Principle play in the school. The assignment this week was to interview both an Administrator and a Teacher and compare and contract their roles in the education system. I like that you used a personal example. When I went into Ms. Vance’s office I was quickly reminded of the fear I felt waiting for Ms. Bagakowski. Ms. Vance is the Director for Madison Christian Children’s Center in Phoenix, Arizona. As I began the interview Ms. Vance expressed her passion for children and how she became the director of Madison Christian Children’s Center. It wasn’t until she was mother that she really found her true calling to be a Teacher. She ran her own daycare from him and after her children were old enough to attend Preschool she went to work as a Preschool Assistant...

Words: 1639 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Academic Performance

...students, they are the ones who learn ideas to become more responsible and productive someday. Examples of the factors affecting the academic performance of students are the environmental, social/ family, teachers, friend relationships, and socio-economic factors. Almost all of the factors are a variable of academic performance. However, the researchers would like to investigate the possible relationship of factors affecting to the academic achievement of under graduate students of Notre Dame of Tacurong College. “Significance of the Study” Paulo Angelo Dela Rosa Mary Joy Cantilla James Cañete Ansarie Datua Bonnie Fe Bangero Beverly Acana 1. This study would provide relevant information to the school administrators to provide the availability of resources. 2. A major contribution of this study lies in the demonstration of a large impact of the role of mothers on students’ performance....

Words: 252 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Education Buissness

...gokul ram,ganesh kumar,gopi,govindhan and gowtham.c GOKUL RAM: Good morning friends,today our topic has education become business now a days? And I agree with it. I was thinking about what teachers and schools and education were all like when I was much younger. I remember teachers who seemed to be on a mission, a sort of crusade to educate, who wanted kids to open their minds to the possibilities around them. They were our counsellors, our mentors, the ones who guided us and listened to our sometimes extremely ridiculous ideas. GANESH KUMAR: Teachers encouraged us and never told us there was anything we couldn’t do. They earned our respect because of their passion for teaching, for the values they inculcated and for the integrity with which they conducted themselves. Were they a different breed? Aren’t there teachers like that anymore? A few of my friends have dedicated their lives to teaching, to illuminating the lives of children who were or are under their care. But I don’t now if there are many others like them out there. Teaching appears to have turned into just another profession. GOWTHAM.C:  Education has become a business – not that ‘business’ is a bad word. It is just that schools and universities have become such commercial enterprises that everything is measured in terms of profits. There is a professor who told me the other day that he used to teach two courses at university and that was tough enough...

Words: 553 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Critical Thinking

...Professionalism at the Crossroads Look at the criteria for a profession. Does education meet the criteria for a profession? From Normal Schools to Board-Certified Teachers There was little preparation or education for teachers from the beginning of the country until the 20th century. The first “normal school” was created in 1823. This was the first school for teachers. This type of school was the primary form of teacher education until the beginning of the 20th century. Education was a very conservative profession as seen in the teaching contract on page 13. The 1980s is the decade where major changes to teacher education occurred. Take note of the changes as reported in this section. How Teachers are Prepared Today Read about the differences between a four year program and an alternative education program. If you were in charge of teacher education, what should teacher education programs teach? Urban Legends about Teaching What do you think about these statements: Teachers are born, not made All you really need to know is the subject you are teaching Teacher education students are less talented than other college majors American Schools: Better Than We Think? What are some things that American schools doing that are helping students? Are our schools just as good as the rest of the world’s? Discussion Board Post What are the pros and cons of teaching? How do you as a teacher...

Words: 307 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Three Cups of Tea

...the world and all the people in it especially those in impoverished countries. I particularly enjoyed how the Balti people influenced Mortenson’s life in such extreme ways. The two prompts that I decided to write on are “Have you ever known anyone like Mortenson” and “Discuss his repeated brushes with failure and how they influence your opinion of Mortensen”. Let me begin by saying Mortenson is an amazing individual. He did something that not many people have the gusto to go through with. He truly loved the Balti people and wanted the make their lives better through education. When I first read this prompt I immediately thought of one of my youth leaders, Cherissa Newton. She hasn’t accomplished anything as substantial as building a school for people in some foreign land. But, she is a social worker who works with underprivileged children each and every day. What Mortenson was on a large scale, helping lots of people all at once, but what Cherissa does is on a small scale, helping individuals over time. She has helped me become a better public speaker and more personable to others. Because of her, I have overcome a lot of my shyness. Cherissa helped me through a lot. She gave me many opportunities for generosity, aid and leadership. She appointed...

Words: 688 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Asad

...SYNOPSIS ON NEED OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING AT INTERMEDIATE LEVEL IN DISTRICT PESHAWAR By Malik Nouman Waris This report is being submitted to the Department of Secondary Education, Faculty of Education, Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad for partial fulfillment of the condition of the Master of Education [pic] M. Ed Research Academic Session 2011-2012 Department of Secondary Teacher Education, Faculty of Education Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, Pakistan Background: According to his definitions: “Guidance is nothing but to assist the individual to choose a vocation, to prepare for it, and to attain efficiency progress.” (Chuhan S. S, 2001) When an individual steps into the practical life, he has to face series of problems and inconveniences in various aspects of his life. There are his physical, emotional, mental and social problems. Guidance is just assisting the individual in various activities of his life—vocational, educational, mental and social. The individual is assisted in the lights of his inborn tendencies, natural potentialities and personal capacities. Actually Guidance is as old as the humanity itself. It existed from the time immemorial. Individual was born with innumerable problems. Even in the primitive and medieval society, the parents used to solve the problems of their children. With the simplicity of society the problems were simple, but now in a modern complex and technological society...

Words: 1969 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Values

...today. By being there everyday of my life my family has taught me the meaning of loyalty, I’m a smart, loving, caring, trustworthy, hardworking, and successful because my parents helped guide me in the right direction. They will be there to support me until the very end. I don’t know what I would do without my family. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be the person I’m today. My family has taught me never to give up and to keep going even when times get rough. They have instilled in me to reach my goals and strive for the best. I will reach my goals in life to the best of my potential. With this in mind, I go to school everyday to reach my short-term goal of graduating with honors and start my next goal of becoming a sophomore in college. My family has taught me everything that I believe in such as religion and working hard for what you want. When I got to school I get taught many things from my teachers, which helps me become a more well rounded and educated person. My friends are also the people who encourage me to be a hard worker and to do my best. They help if I don’t understand something and are there for me when I need someone to talk to. The learning of values starts at an early age. Your parents want the best for you and start teaching you what is important by reading books to you, talking to you, and caring for you. A person will be influenced by many...

Words: 383 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Journal Assignment

...Journal Assignment Grand Canyon University UNV 501 For my first article I picked an article entitled A Longitudinal Examination of the Link between Youth Physical Fitness and Academic Achievement. Both authors Rebecca London and Sebastian Castrechini work at Stanford University. They are both interested in knowing if the fitness does help achievement, London has done extensive research in this field. They both work at Stanford University. I selected this article because I am very interested in elementary education, and I am also interested in fitness and sports. This article allowed me to see if there was a correlation between students being fit and how they do in the classroom. This article is considered scholarly because both authors did extensive testing and research for this article. I was glad to find that kids who were fit did better in the classroom. My second article was The Significance of Mathematical Knowledge in teaching elementary methods course: perspectives of mathematics teacher educators. It was co-written by Rina and Dov Zazkis. They wanted to see how math teachers used there knowledge to teach a class. I picked this article since I both enjoy math and I am interested in knowing different ways to teach it. Both authors work at universities in the education field, though D. Zazkis researches mathematics and science education. This is scholarly because they investigated how math teachers taught students. My third article is an article...

Words: 386 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Freedom Writers

...Writers,” a teacher was needed to teach freshmen English at Woodrow Wilson High School and Erin Gruwell took on that challenge. As it turned out, it was nothing like what she imagined it to be. There was racial segregation in the classroom and all her students had problems outside and inside of school. That however, did not stop her from being passionate about her job. She used new techniques to help her students become interested in the class while learning and made many sacrifices for those kids which no other teacher was willing to do. Although everyone thought the kids in room 203 were the “unteachables”, Mrs. Gruwell used her own ways to educate them and made a huge impact to those students’ lives including her three of her most difficult students: Eva, Jamal, and Marcus. When the bell rang for class, Mrs. Gruwell’s expectations went down the drain as most of her students came in her class late and the ones that showed up displayed disrespect and no interest for school. Even though her students were not what she expected them to be, she found a way to interest them into learning using her own unique ways. She entertained them in many ways such as music, and using music lyrics to teach instead of poetry that bored the whole class. She made the class time fun by having many activities and gave each of the students their own journals to write in and share about their everyday lives. Since the school was not willing to give students books to read because of the limited budgets...

Words: 831 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Report on Ways in Which School Prepares You for the World Outside

...Report on the ways in which school prepares us, the students, for the world outside Introduction This report is about the ways in which our school prepares us, the students, for the world outside of school. I have researched this by asking numerous students of their opinions, and also by asking some of the teachers how they try to prepare students for their later lives. I also gave teachers an opinion poll where they selected how much they did/did not agree with statements made. Findings * From asking the opinions of students of how well school prepares them for later life, I have found that the general view is that school does not prepare you for later life on the whole and that it only prepares you for work life and teaches you nothing about other crucial elements of life, such as managing money. * Teachers, on the whole as seen from the opinion poll, strongly agree that the current education system, and how it is delivered, prepares you fully for future life. * Some students believe that teachers have the opinion that school fully prepares you for life outside of school because they have not experienced a career like they are teaching their students because they came straight from university and went into working * Despite the general consensus from teachers that the school prepares students for later life fully, some teachers believe that the education system on the whole does not prepare students for life at all because as the students go further...

Words: 600 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Article Based on Opinion

...13, 2013 MYT 8:42:05 AM Monitor private 'schools' OVER the weekend I was glad to have read the history behind Lebuh Bishop (The Star, Aug 10) – a wonderful occasion to go down memory lane. To know that many early schools in Peninsular Malaysia started here on Penang Island makes me proud of Penangites and those individuals who saw through that the education system was established for the inhabitants of Penang. As a young man, I came to know that Penang may be the state in Malaysia where good education institutions may have started. I have heard of a good number of well established schools here. Education institutions such as Dalat and Uplands, and missions schools such as St Xavier’s Institution and the many Convent schools. Mission schools in Malaysia are said to have start in the 1850’s, while schools like Dalat and Uplands started in 1929 and 1955 respectively. I feel that these schools were well-known because of their good and established education pedagogy. Coming from a Catholic mission school myself, I can vouch that mission schools were once very well known for their co-curricular activities such as debating, orchestra, musicals and sports. It was through this wholesome pedagogy that many Penangites lives were touched, shaped and transformed. I am an educator myself, and my recent return to Penang brought to mind some worrying elements. Along Tanjung Bungah Road I noticed sales banners put up by an international school. I remember seeing these banners in 2012...

Words: 519 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Role of Parents and Schools

...ROLE OF PARENTS AND SCHOOLS Chris Steininger Institution Affiliation Course Title Date Parents and schools play basic and vital roles in the growth and development of children in all aspects of their lives in the society. They are essential in the formation and shaping of character, the determination of virtue and in the end they are the basis for the existence of emotionally, spiritually, physically stable society. Right from the day a child is born, the kind of bond that is formed between it and its parents forms the basis to character development. The interaction between mother and child helps the child learn each and every basic element of both survival and acceptance into the systems that guide the existence of society ( Hunt; et al, 2010). Parents in the basic sense are their children’s first teachers. Through all the activities they are engaged in together as the child develops up to the pre-school level, parents help the child participate in cooking, cleaning and gardening, the child is slowly eased into the world of learning. The parents also provide the link to formal education by actively participating in their children’s schooling activities and thus making an easy transition for the children into the formal learning structures. Schools are charged with the huge role of moulding their charges from the moment they are enrolled with no or little formal education into a productive person in the society. This is a mammoth task which...

Words: 1022 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

College Entrance Essay

...An Exceptional Student is the Product of an Extraordinary Teacher Approximately 13 years ago I left a lucrative career in health care to become an educator. Since, making that transition I look back with pride for embracing my destiny which in part is teaching, but now I need to do more. When I think about all the students’ lives I have touched in a positive manner over the years, my entire being fills up with joy. Knowledge I gained from completing my Master in Education in 2010 gave me good solid insight on how to enhance my teaching techniques; which meant improving my students’ learning processes. The most important fact I learned as a grad student is an extraordinary teacher can produce exceptional students because they can pass their passion, dedication and commitment onto their students. In addition, knowledge I gained earning this degree afforded me the ability to facilitate and assist my co-teachers; in developing strategies to aid them in improving relationships with their students and better management of their classrooms. While assisting my co-teachers I pleasantly realized the positive impact I had on students increased by assisting these teachers; this realization is the motivation behind my decision to pursue an educational specialist degree. I believe an Educational Specialist Post Master degree, at U of M, concentrating on leadership will enhance my present understanding of leadership. Although, I have a philosophy of education this degree will also develop...

Words: 408 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Teacher’s Competencies and Factors Affecting the P Erformance of Female Teachersin Bahawalpur (Southern Punjab) Pakistan.

...performance. Majority of teachers (87%) views that salary and benefits are performing a main role in teacher’s satisfaction.Some (59%) teachers’ viewed that low salary creates hurdles for their intent to stay in teaching profession. 57%teachers says that poor pay is becoming the cause of mental dissatisfaction. Whereas some (44%) opines thatteaching job enables to provide a satisfactory standard of living. Table No: 3 Teacher’s views about workload related factors Statement Agree%Total%Uncertain Disagree%Total%Teachers in schools are expected to dodifficult amount of record keeping andclerical work.SA A SDADA29 48 77 10 10 3 13The extra co-curricular work loaddecreases the morale of female teachers.31 47 78 12 7 3 10Over crowded classes increase stress forfemale teaches.43 49 92 5 2 1 3Total 247 27 26 This table presents the views of teachers about workload related factors which affect their performance. 77% teacher’s view that teachers in schools are expected to do difficult amount of record keeping and clerical work. Some of them (79%) teachers says that extra co-curricular workload decreases their morale....

Words: 1809 - Pages: 8