Post by raindancer on Aug 20, 2014 20:07:23 GMT
Full disclosure, I think our superintendent does an *excellent* job doing what he does, but I also find him to be arrogant and rather condescending to parents on a fairly regular basis in social media settings. So I may have a colored opinion of him that impacts my thoughts on this.
But today two of the high schools had a power outage and an email was sent out at 7am:
"Dear A school parents,
The power should be back on by 9:00 and school is being held as usual.
But if you would like to keep your child home today, we understand and will excuse the absence.
Just call and leave a message or send an email letting us know.
Thank you,
Mr. Principal "
Then about 30 min. after this the power was restored. The superintendent announced on the community fb page that school was now in session and "Power is back up at A & B. No excused absences. School as usual."
So a parent posted this: "I tagged you in the post, Mr. Super, of the announcement made by Mr. Principal of A that the absence would be excused."
Mr. Super followed with: "That announcement is being adjusted based on new situation. No reason for students to be missing important day of school. Staying home is waste of opportunity and taxpayer money."
So another parent posted:
"Let's also keep in mind that not all parents are on these Facebook pages and have no idea what's going on. Their child arrives to school, no power, told they can go home, leave, and won't find out until tomorrow that they were directed back to school ON FACEBOOK! No email, no phone call, announcement made on a forum on Facebook that not all parents belong to? I'm sorry, Mr. Super, but the ball was dropped on the district's end, not the parents who you say "can be more resourceful and get their kids back to school."
The come back from Mr. Super:
" No announcement was ever made that classes were cancelled. I personally posted on the district, RR and CF pages at about 7 this morning that power was out, but was scheduled to be restored by 9 and that school would be going on as usual. Information was also posted on the school web pages and sent home via school messenger"
Now I have a child at CF which is a middle school. I did not receive any of this info and I did not check the fb page until after my kids were in school for 4 hours since I had a meeting. And I did not get this information in my news feed anyway because it's fb. Lets get real. So apparently my kid was at school for the first hour and half without power (starts at 7:30). I don't even know, since nothing went out to parents.
Another thing to note is that we are in a rural area and some of the kids in our district are bused up to 40 miles.
So it's not unreasonable that kids who were excused can't get back to school. And apparently kids who showed up for 0 hour were told to go home if they wanted and so they left around 8:30.
So that's just the gist, but the parents are exploding that thread and the super seems to have bowed out altogether.
I have no dog in this fight, but I think the parents are in the right here and that the district should just call it a wash and let it go for today. All excused as stated and too bad for the head count. We never have snow days or anything like that, but one day out for something like this seems legit and not that big of a deal. What do you all think?
But today two of the high schools had a power outage and an email was sent out at 7am:
"Dear A school parents,
The power should be back on by 9:00 and school is being held as usual.
But if you would like to keep your child home today, we understand and will excuse the absence.
Just call and leave a message or send an email letting us know.
Thank you,
Mr. Principal "
Then about 30 min. after this the power was restored. The superintendent announced on the community fb page that school was now in session and "Power is back up at A & B. No excused absences. School as usual."
So a parent posted this: "I tagged you in the post, Mr. Super, of the announcement made by Mr. Principal of A that the absence would be excused."
Mr. Super followed with: "That announcement is being adjusted based on new situation. No reason for students to be missing important day of school. Staying home is waste of opportunity and taxpayer money."
So another parent posted:
"Let's also keep in mind that not all parents are on these Facebook pages and have no idea what's going on. Their child arrives to school, no power, told they can go home, leave, and won't find out until tomorrow that they were directed back to school ON FACEBOOK! No email, no phone call, announcement made on a forum on Facebook that not all parents belong to? I'm sorry, Mr. Super, but the ball was dropped on the district's end, not the parents who you say "can be more resourceful and get their kids back to school."
The come back from Mr. Super:
" No announcement was ever made that classes were cancelled. I personally posted on the district, RR and CF pages at about 7 this morning that power was out, but was scheduled to be restored by 9 and that school would be going on as usual. Information was also posted on the school web pages and sent home via school messenger"
Now I have a child at CF which is a middle school. I did not receive any of this info and I did not check the fb page until after my kids were in school for 4 hours since I had a meeting. And I did not get this information in my news feed anyway because it's fb. Lets get real. So apparently my kid was at school for the first hour and half without power (starts at 7:30). I don't even know, since nothing went out to parents.
Another thing to note is that we are in a rural area and some of the kids in our district are bused up to 40 miles.
So it's not unreasonable that kids who were excused can't get back to school. And apparently kids who showed up for 0 hour were told to go home if they wanted and so they left around 8:30.
So that's just the gist, but the parents are exploding that thread and the super seems to have bowed out altogether.
I have no dog in this fight, but I think the parents are in the right here and that the district should just call it a wash and let it go for today. All excused as stated and too bad for the head count. We never have snow days or anything like that, but one day out for something like this seems legit and not that big of a deal. What do you all think?
