School Vacation, Snow Days, and Unreasonable Parents

I'm supposed to write my "part 2" story today....but I don't feel it right now and the only way for me to write it is to "feel it."  I will get to it though, I promise.  Thanks for your interest. 

Here is what is on my mind today....school vacation, snow days, and parent's inability to be pleased (or so it seems from some of what I've seen today!)  I have an incredible urge to comment every time I see one of the posts where people are just bitching without offering a solution to the problem.  I want to tell people that if they really believe the entire school system is "stupid" and they have a better solution, they should get their kids out of that school system and start their own.  But I'm not a huge fan of arguing over any social media site so I don't say anything.  I just write about it on my own page! 

I've read and heard numerous times about school districts considering cancelling April Vacation to make up for some of the snow days so that kids won't be in school so long at the end of the year.  From what I understand, whether it's cancelled or the schedule is kept the same, parents just aren't going to be happy.  It makes sense; plans are made, vacations are booked, child care is planned....I get it, I really do.  But what I do not understand is what parent's think is the solution.  I've yet to find anybody that has a solution that can please everybody because there isn't one.  Some people already have plans for April vacation, so cancelling it would affect their plans.  Some parents have plans for the middle of June and the extra days in school are going to affect those plans.  There are many people affected by this, but the fact that so many people are being totally unreasonable about it is what has caught my eye.   One of my absolute favorites about this is a variation of this comment:

"It will be way too hot for the kids in school in June.  They cannot handle that without air conditioning."

Ok, maybe I'm wrong here, but um...it's New England, it's summer....many millions of children have lived through the month of June IN THEIR HOUSES....WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING...IN 4 DECKER APARTMENT BUILDINGS and they lived.  All of them.  Hell, it's not like it's August when shit gets real hot and nasty around here.  Seriously?  Your kid won't make it in a classroom without air conditioning?  Does your kid play outside in the summer, you know, when it's hot??  Or do you follow them around with an air conditioner?

"Great, now my kids will have no summer vacation."

What??  There are still like 8 weeks where they won't be in school, and 90% of parents are going to be totally frustrated by their "bored" kids after the second week.  These same parents will be complaining that they "Can't wait for school to start again" in mid-July. 

The other part of this that makes me laugh is what was posted during all the snow this winter.    

 I feel like people are forgetting that the superintendent of the school is a human being too.  A human who can only make a decision based on the information that he/she is given at any time.  And since we all live in New England, we should all be fully aware of the fact that the weather is pretty hard to predict.  Storms are often hit or miss and where you live in this state plays a big part of that. 

Here's what I've seen myself and what I think about it:

"What the hell? They cancelled school again? We didn't even get much snow!"

Yet, the forecast called for 6-10 inches and it was snowing at the time when the superintendent had to make the call to cancel or not.....I assume most superintendents aren't psychic and all they can go on is the information that they get from the weather reports.  Maybe at 8am they should have updated everybody that there actually is going to be school because the storm turned east and went offshore?  Is that easier to handle?

"It's snowing out there so bad right now.  I almost crashed my car getting the kids to school today.  What kind of idiot doesn't cancel school on a day like today?"

The poor guy was probably sitting at home, reading the thousands of angry emails he got from parents the previous week when he did cancel school and said "Fuck it.  They get pissed off if we cancel school as a precaution when the weather report says we are getting 8" so I guess we will have school so all the parents are happy."  But they weren't then either.  Poor Guy!

Obviously not everybody is handling this as badly as I explained above.  Most people are fairly reasonable and understand that the school systems are making the best decision that they can right now.  But there are always those people that are totally unreasonable and I just cannot understand how they can be like that. 

What do you  think?  Can you solve this great crisis??