Snow Daze

For years I thought closing schools for the hint of potential snow, a phenomenon I thought only existed in Virginia, was the highest form of foolishness. Shaking my head, I recalled the times when I would trudge out to our school bus, busting through a foot of fresh snow and small 18-inch-high drifts just to get to the plowed lane here the bus waited.

I would say where the nice warm bus waited, but that would be an absolute lie. The bus was never warm in the winter. In fact, from about November through April the only way to get warm on the school bus was to have two friends sitting in the seat with you. Even then, if you had the outside seat against the window odds were that your shoulder and arm would be a bit frosted anyway.

So the other day, while bemoaning on Facebook the fact that my wife has now had a mini-vacation since her school has closed for six days in the past two weeks. I found out that lo and behold things have changed in my old neighborhood.

Now, it seems, they too shutdown schools at the hint of impending snow. The big difference, I guess, is that when they get snow it’s usually the yard stick variety and not the micrometer variety we see around here. Still, in questioning those FB friends who provided that information, I found out they closed schools for exactly the same reason the local schools do.

Can you say lawsuit?

Yes, lawsuits. One bus crash could put a school system in dire straits, especially if they “self insure.” Self insuring is a way that the schools can save money by accepting the risk involved if one of their buses or some other mode of transportation gets into an accident. Damage to vehicles notwithstanding, where the problems arise is when the passengers on the bus opt to sue. When a bus crashes anywhere, all the personal injury attorneys in the world spin their heads in the direction of the crash.

Don’t think that happens?

Well, a friend of mine, who was a reporter in my office years ago, was driving her car in Richmond when her car slid on the icy road and she bumped into a Richmond City bus. It really wasn’t much of a crash at all, little to no damage to either vehicle. But within a month, she received notices about dozens of people who had filed personal injury suits against her. She said there were more lawsuits than there had been bus riders.

In the long run, everything turned out ok for her, her insurance company fought the cases, but she still had to endure the hassle. That brings us back to the current state of school snow days.

Closing schools isn’t really a matter of what’s best for the children; it’s about being sued. And, when they are covering their own insurance, it just makes plain old fashioned sense to eliminate a potential risk when possible. That, dear readers, is good project management—good risk management. Why not eliminate those days that pose the greatest potential for legal action?

Back in the days when I would trudge through the snow to the school bus stop, things were handled much differently. Ellsworth Meigs, the Greene County Superintendent of Highways, just happened to live on my street. Rumor was, and I believe it was more than rumor, that he would go to bed early on nights when we expected snow. He would get up around midnight and check to see if it was snowing.

Then he would get up around four a.m. and take another looksee just in case. If there was no snow, off to bed again, sort of like Punxsutawney Phil will do Sunday. But if there was snow, he would hit his call list and lickety-split the plow crews would hit the highways and the roads would be passable for all the kiddies to get to school.

But the onus was still on the school systems. They had to be willing to keep the doors open, even when the weather prediction indicated a bad snowstorm on the horizon. Alas, I guess those days are history now. The threat of lawsuits is enough to make closing the schools a no-brainer today.