Great decision to hold DPS classes today

[FoxyScholar10]

Were you ALL for year-round schooling when you were a child?

As a matter of fact, I was. I wanted to go to summer school. I didn't understand why I couldn't go until my parents explained to me that summer school was intended for students who had failed/fell behind during the school year.

And during my postsecondary schooling, I took spring/summer classes along with fall/winter classes.

My motivation was not [[only) so I could get done, but that I could get ahead; repetitive exposure to the material would give me a deeper understanding/greater advantage.

[Wingnatic]

I'd like to see some of these cold hearted people in some of these posts standing outside for even 5 minutes in that brutal weather this morning . When my kids were finishing up at DPS was about that time when we had that huge snowfall and the National news borrowed our local news video of that little girl struggling in waist high snow to get to school , thats when Detroit got serious about clearing snow at schools and within a few block radius and hired contractors to help out . I think parents need to take matters into their own hands , much like they did today and not send their kids out in these brutal temps . I didn't see any kids out today , so I guess it wasn't really a '' snow day ''

[jt1]

As a matter of fact, I was. I wanted to go to summer school. I didn't understand why I couldn't go until my parents explained to me that summer school was intended for students who had failed/fell behind during the school year.

And during my postsecondary schooling, I took spring/summer classes along with fall/winter classes.

My motivation was not [[only) so I could get done, but that I could get ahead; repetitive exposure to the material would give me a deeper understanding/greater advantage.

My hats off to you. I guess I owe you an apology.

[EastsideAl]

I'm not necessarily one of those "why can't they tough it out like I did" people, but I do find it interesting that there seems to be some sort of generational divide on weather and snow days in the schools.

I woke up and looked out this morning and on seeing the situation fully expected that kids would be going to school today. I was surprised when I heard about so many of the suburban systems closing. Like a lot of people here I went to DPS in the late '60s and early '70s and I certainly remember going to school on several days pretty much like this one or a little worse. In fact, I can remember only 2 times that the schools ever closed during my years there, once in 1965 when I was in kindergarten and again around 1974 when I was in high school, both from 20+ inch snowfalls.

And, yes, I remember walking to and from school alone, through dark icy streets and knee-deep snow, with snow blowing in my face and my fingers and ears going a little numb. I'm not bragging, it's just fact and I think most people then just saw it as part of growing up in Detroit.

In fact, my Michigan born-and-bred mother, the child of Canadian immigrants, would have laughed at me when I was a kid for trying to stay home on a day like this. My 85 year old father went out today and brushed his car off and drove downtown this morning at 8:30 AM, just as he does several days a week, and was surprised to find almost none of the younger people at his office. Having grown up here, he too finds it odd that people would take what he sees as normal Michigan weather so seriously.

But these days, with less overall snowfall and fewer very cold days than we had back when I was a kid, and with much better winter clothing available, it seems that parents and children now expect that school will be canceled in this sort of inclement weather. I'm not meaning to be critical, and folks now may be right and we may have been heedlessly foolish back then, but I do wonder what accounts for the difference. Has something changed in the way kids go to school today or in the relationship current-day Michiganders have with our weather?

[mauser]

Hmmmm....what a difference 20 days has made....

BTW: I'm ALL for year-round schooling.

Sounds great ! You better get out your check book, because that is going to get expensive.....I know you wouldnt be a deadbeat expecting free work.

[Hermod]

I'm not necessarily one of those "why can't they tough it out like I did" people, but I do find it interesting that there seems to be some sort of generational divide on weather and snow days in the schools.

I woke up and looked out this morning and on seeing the situation fully expected that kids would be going to school today. I was surprised when I heard about so many of the suburban systems closing. Like a lot of people here I went to DPS in the late '60s and early '70s and I certainly remember going to school on several days pretty much like this one or a little worse. In fact, I can remember only 2 times that the schools ever closed during my years there, once in 1965 when I was in kindergarten and again around 1974 when I was in high school, both from 20+ inch snowfalls.

And, yes, I remember walking to and from school alone, through dark icy streets and knee-deep snow, with snow blowing in my face and my fingers and ears going a little numb. I'm not bragging, it's just fact and I think most people then just saw it as part of growing up in Detroit.

In fact, my Michigan born-and-bred mother, the child of Canadian immigrants, would have laughed at me when I was a kid for trying to stay home on a day like this. My 85 year old father went out today and brushed his car off and drove downtown this morning at 8:30 AM, just as he does several days a week, and was surprised to find almost none of the younger people at his office. Having grown up here, he too finds it odd that people would take what he sees as normal Michigan weather so seriously.

But these days, with less overall snowfall and fewer very cold days than we had back when I was a kid, and with much better winter clothing available, it seems that parents and children now expect that school will be canceled in this sort of inclement weather. I'm not meaning to be critical, and folks now may be right and we may have been heedlessly foolish back then, but I do wonder what accounts for the difference. Has something changed in the way kids go to school today or in the relationship current-day Michiganders have with our weather?

If kids are walking to school, cold and snow have less effect than if they are riding on school buses. when I walked to school, we lived out at the edge of the attendance zone.

Mom would open the door and launch my brother and i out into whatever weather there was. As we tottered down the street like penguins, other doors would open and the neighbor kids would be quickly pushed out so as not to lose too much heat from the house. As we got closer to school, it became a swelling mob of kids with runny noses tacking into the wind as the various side streets merged into the final block to school with a vast cloud of vapor hanging over from the simultaneous breathing..

On a really windy day with plenty of wind chill, the secret was to walk backwards toward the school if the wind was blowing in your face. A really cold wind made your eyes sting and your tears freeze.

We all wore the really thick corduroy trousers [[the kind that whistled as you rubbed your legs together while walking). The drifts would get them caked with snow which would turn into ice. When you got to school in the AM or got home in the PM, all of the ice crystals would melt in the indoor heat.

Little girls wore leggings, but the bigger girls [[say fourth grade on) had to wear dresses or skirts [[usually with woolen knee socks) and the cold must have really gotten to them. Girls were not allowed to wear slacks to school in those days.

[gazhekwe]

That's how I got frostbite, knee sox and a skirt. My knees burned in the cold for years after that.

[FoxyScholar10]

Sounds great ! You better get out your check book, because that is going to get expensive.....I know you wouldnt be a deadbeat expecting free work.

I'd rather pay for schooling than for prison cells ;-) That's including my money as well as public tax dollars....

Not sure what free work you're talking about, though....

[Magnatomicflux]

Sometimes you learn more on the way to school than you do in school.
Attachment 8053

ROFL!!!! I just bought this. It's been a favorite of mine since I was a little kid.
Frah-gi-leh .........it must be Italian! Ever notice in the credits, there's no character name for the Dad other than "the old-man" ? LOL!


Everybody has an SUV in the garage, but they can't get their kid to school. You know they're more than capable getting you where you need to go, other then hauling soccer balls and produce.....don't ya?

I remember as a kid, and I'm only 29 now, there was only ONE snow day. And that's only because the school lost power. County schools I understood because no-one wants to dump a bus full of children in a ditch, but city schools have NO EXCUSE other than lack of heat. Where the hell are these kids getting trucked in from that makes it such a long drive anyways? Don't these suburbs have schools in them they can walk to?

Buy American is right on the money. Those malls were probably packed today. Or were they closed too? Nah....busiest times of the year them snow days.
Guess all those designer clothes they beg for and receive simply arn't good enough to protect them from the elements.
I always wondered why in the mornings, dunking my toast in my hot chocolate before school watching channel 4 news, why I was going to school and nobody in Detroit was because of snow. The same, exact, amount, of snow.

[softailrider]

seriously? do people still think OU is a MSU extension? It's been its own independent university since 1970.

Nah, he's trying to insinuate that Oakland U is a crappy school.

[sumas]

I am a boomer and a DPS graduate, it's true back in the day we almost never had a snow day. However there were far more local schools. Teachers had a residency requirement also. We all lived close to our destination.

Given the school closures, distances traveled, kids taking buses etc. I certainly believe the schools should have closed.

Detroit teacher almost broke my heart with the lack of gloves for the few students that arrived.

Was a little surprised too at the comment that us boomers should just pass away so what we worked for, wouldn't be a burden for this younger generation. Remember thinking our taxes were too high but shrugged, because we were paying into a system that supported our aging parents. In defensive of my generation, we respected our elders.

[sumas]

Gaz, sorry about your frostbite but it made me remember. Forgot we were not allowed to wear pants, just skirts or dresses. Burrr!

[Ravine]

I am a boomer and a DPS graduate, it's true back in the day we almost never had a snow day. However there were far more local schools. Teachers had a residency requirement also. We all lived close to our destination.

Given the school closures, distances traveled, kids taking buses etc. I certainly believe the schools should have closed.

Detroit teacher almost broke my heart with the lack of gloves for the few students that arrived.

Was a little surprised too at the comment that us boomers should just pass away so what we worked for, wouldn't be a burden for this younger generation. Remember thinking our taxes were too high but shrugged, because we were paying into a system that supported our aging parents. In defensive of my generation, we respected our elders.

As a boomer, I am as hard on the Boomers as anyone, but still, those are fightin' words. Where are they?

[English]

I just don't think it's fair to judge another generation by a previous generation's standards. The entire world is different.

Of course, if we're willing to denigrate today's kids and compare them to how mighty the Boomers or my own Gen-X were in those long-ago Michigan winters, then how about we compare today's ADULTS with the adults of the past? How are we as parents, on the job, as community leaders? How are we leading the nation compared to say, the Greatest Generation? Are we leaving a legacy behind for our grandchildren, or just misery?

Today's kids are just that -- kids. They have little say over whether schools are closed or open, whether parents choose to take them or not, etc. So if we really want to go there, let's not talk about wimpy 6 year olds or lazy 12 year olds, but instead let's examine the grownup society that is producing them.

Sure, I had very few snow days. But when the weather was icy or the windchill was significantly below zero, my mom kept me home. She didn't gripe about how when SHE was attending DPS in the 50s, SHE had to tunnel through snowbanks [[which judging from some of your posts, she did). She chose to parent me differently than she was parented, and there isn't a thing wrong with my work ethic as a result. We didn't go to the mall. We read and did our assignments, and then, we read, watched TV once after school cartoons came on, and helped with dinner.

This topic irritates me as much as those stalwarts who choose to go to work with walking pneumonia. Sure, it's wimpy and lazy not to come in when it's something minor, but when it's something contagious and people keep sneezing/coughing/wheezing while sitting around people in meetings, or doing even worse in a shared restroom without being considerate, I really have to stop myself from loathing them -- especially if I start feeling rotten that night. It's incredibly selfish. Some of us have chronic conditions which mean that your severe cold or flu turns into our ER visit. Stay home OR quarantine yourselves.

Because in the end, just showing up isn't a virtue. If it was, this nation would be a LOT better off, as we're the nation who shows up to a fault, with fewer vacations and sick days as we fall further behind. The virtue lies in what you do when you're THERE.

[English]

I am a boomer and a DPS graduate, it's true back in the day we almost never had a snow day. However there were far more local schools. Teachers had a residency requirement also. We all lived close to our destination.

Given the school closures, distances traveled, kids taking buses etc. I certainly believe the schools should have closed.

Detroit teacher almost broke my heart with the lack of gloves for the few students that arrived.

Was a little surprised too at the comment that us boomers should just pass away so what we worked for, wouldn't be a burden for this younger generation. Remember thinking our taxes were too high but shrugged, because we were paying into a system that supported our aging parents. In defensive of my generation, we respected our elders.

Thank you, Sumas. I agree with your explanation about the ways things were. Even when I went to Bates in the 1980s, the expectation was that you could walk to your neighborhood school and be bused in. It was only later that busing was eliminated.

But about the Boomers respecting elders -- I agree that they did when they were young in the 1950s, but the 1960s and early 1970s consisted of a decade of defying one's elders. Rarely has a generation come of age so thoroughly repudiating the values of dear old Mom and Dad.

[East Detroit]

We used to have knitted mittens. They were warm as long as they didn't get wet. Of course, we had el cheapo Tom McCann shoes and corduroy pants instead of hundred dollar sneakers and Tommy Middlefinger label clothes so our parents could afford the mittens.

Where did someone say that the kids who DID come to school and didn't have gloves were wearing "hundred dollar sneakers"?

[Ravine]

English wrote:
"Rarely has a generation come of age so thoroughly repudiating the values of dear old Mom and Dad."

Yep; that would be us. Every generation does it-- it's natural-- but we turned it into an end in itself, and some of us continued to do so until well past the point, in one's adulthood, when one should have acquired loftier aspirations than the fervent wish to be the polar opposite of one's same-gender parent.
Oh, and thumbs-up on "repudiate." Perfect word choice.

[sumas]

Hmmm have to think about that English. No doubt I was a part of the "hippie" generation. Rules and regs meant little to me, still don't for that matter. Defy government that seems stupid, etc. but as a sixties/seventies kid I can't hold my seniors in more regard. Am a caretaker for my Mom who will be 91 shortly, Altzheimers is a terrible disease. Still treat her with all consideration. My parents were not perfect but they were fabulous parents. I know of so many people my age doing the same.

Kind of cute story, my Mom was a Depression child, her folks were pretty poor but her Dad would pick her up from school in bad weather but his old car was pretty shabby. She was always embarassed because the car was a relic even then. My Dad and Mom attended the same school but didn't know each other. My Dad remembered that car but not her.

[youngdetroiter]

Yes, WSU is open. I'm prepping to go in for my office hours. But at least SOMETIMES Wayne State closes. U of M and MSU never, ever, EVER close. Ever. For any reason.

Very true. On Monday morning, I still had to drive to the MSU campus for a final exam, where there was at least a half foot of snow. I was late, as the 10-degree temperatures caused the air in my tires to contract--resulting in flattened tires. In my years there, I have had to trudge through blizzards in nearly impassable snow. On a few occasions, I would arrive to class only to have class canceled due to an absent professor. Otherwise, I have only known class to be disrupted or canceled in the rare event of an active tornado warning [[with sirens blaring) in Ingham County.

[DanFromDetroit]

I'd like to see some of these cold hearted people in some of these posts standing outside for even 5 minutes in that brutal weather this morning . When my kids were finishing up at DPS was about that time when we had that huge snowfall and the National news borrowed our local news video of that little girl struggling in waist high snow to get to school , thats when Detroit got serious about clearing snow at schools and within a few block radius and hired contractors to help out . I think parents need to take matters into their own hands , much like they did today and not send their kids out in these brutal temps . I didn't see any kids out today , so I guess it wasn't really a '' snow day ''

I saw plenty of kids out in the cold today- on the news waiting for free NFL tickets @ Ford Field. People are more than willing to brave the elements if they see a benefit for it. Spoiler alert: Most children [[and more than a few adults) don't see a benefit in going to school regularly. The sad thing is many children in Detroit grow up with that mentality and instill it in their children and so on. But with the system as broken as it is, can you blame them? Maybe they learned more about commerce and supply and demand etc by waiting for a NFL handout

[CLAUDE G]

I went to Grosse Pointe Public Schools back in the 80's and 90's. It was very very rare that we would get a snow day. A matter of fact, the Elementry school I went to was built in 1929 and I think we got more days off due to a water main break, or the heat being out than we ever did due to snow.

A matter of fact, there was a kid in my class who's father was on the school board and was responcible for making the decision to close school. We used to give this kid a hard time everytime we had to go to school on a snow day.

It just makes me sick everytime I turn on the news on one of these days and see some of these schools close when there is only an inch of snow on the ground.

Its almost as bad as some of my employees who try to tell me they can't come to work because their driveway is solid ice.... I went to get in my car this morning and the doors where frozen shut. Ran some hot water in the kitchen sink, and after pouring several buckets of water on my car door I managed to get it open. Put me half an hour behind, but not anywhere near making me miss a day of work.

[reddog289]

As a 41 year old Suburban School District employee, I enjoyed the day. Kids are outta the house, Wife had to work, and I didn't have to go on delivery runs in a truck with bald tires, bouncing hood and an sticky throttle. As I think about it, I got snow days when there was a blizzard, But no cold days. That started in High School, The day the shuttle exploded.

[Zacha341]

Well stated Sumas. Yes, I walked to my schools for the most part. Nearly all students are on the buss now, and if they are going to the DPS career techs part of the day, a buss has to take them there from their home high school. Indeed things are far more complex.

I am a boomer and a DPS graduate, it's true back in the day we almost never had a snow day. However there were far more local schools. Teachers had a residency requirement also. We all lived close to our destination.

Given the school closures, distances traveled, kids taking buses etc. I certainly believe the schools should have closed.

Detroit teacher almost broke my heart with the lack of gloves for the few students that arrived.

Was a little surprised too at the comment that us boomers should just pass away so what we worked for, wouldn't be a burden for this younger generation. Remember thinking our taxes were too high but shrugged, because we were paying into a system that supported our aging parents. In defensive of my generation, we respected our elders.

[Zacha341]

I feel you about the sick who persist to come to work etc. spreading their germs which for some of us can really be zonker....

...This topic irritates me as much as those stalwarts who choose to go to work with walking pneumonia. Sure, it's wimpy and lazy not to come in when it's something minor, but when it's something contagious and people keep sneezing/coughing/wheezing while sitting around people in meetings, or doing even worse in a shared restroom without being considerate, I really have to stop myself from loathing them -- especially if I start feeling rotten that night. It's incredibly selfish. Some of us have chronic conditions which mean that your severe cold or flu turns into our ER visit. Stay home OR quarantine yourselves.

Because in the end, just showing up isn't a virtue. If it was, this nation would be a LOT better off, as we're the nation who shows up to a fault, with fewer vacations and sick days as we fall further behind. The virtue lies in what you do when you're THERE.

[Zacha341]

Well they may have had on the fancy sneakers but thankfully DPS has a uniform policy K thru 12. White polo-style shirts, or button downs and blue/ black pants. Sure some of the kids slip in that expensive 'now in style' Aeropostal crap pull over and hoodies, but the uniform policy ended the fancy jeans and other hyper-materialism that some parents obligingly heap upon their kids. They have to sport that stuff on the weekend. The uniform dress code over the last decade has cut down on the 'bling' factor greatly. DPS kids cannot even wear tshirts to school, slogans or not.

Where did someone say that the kids who DID come to school and didn't have gloves were wearing "hundred dollar sneakers"?