Well, these last few days have been pretty interesting. With the thought of another Winter storm hitting on Sunday, my wife reminded me that since Monday I have worked (happily, of course) 16 hours before 8:00 a.m. The people who have worked much more than me, however, are the plow crews. Yes they get overtime, but would you want to work for four days straight on about five hours of sleep? Thanks to our own crews, as well as the Town and County crews, for working to keep us safe and our schools and businesses open.
I also want to thank our bus drivers. I used to be a volunteer firefighter and spent time driving all kinds of fire trucks to fire calls. That is nothing compared to driving the same sized vehicle with 60 passengers on board (many with ants in their pants) on snowy roads. Many of you have thanked them for their great driving and service especially in these tough conditions, and we will celebrate the week tomorrow with coffee and donuts and I will pass along your thanks.
Then there are the food service workers. Imagine cooking a big dinner at your home and then receiving a call from your spouse or kids telling you that they "can't make it". That is the feeling that our staff get every time we delay or close...when cooking for 5,000 students. They have to meal plan, schedule, and work twice as hard on delay days to keep the cafeteria in good working order.
Channel 9 covered this very well at : http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story/Schools-juggle-decisions-to-delay-or-cancel/xxP7oEy9-U6bNMklb5Te1A.cspx
It seems like we will get through the rest of the week without interruption and we will see what next week brings. Now, put yourself in the shoes of Mr. Davern, our Director of Fine Arts, and Mr. Pascale, our Director of Athletics. We missed three days of concerts, practices, games, rehearsals, and training. They are working together right now to try to reschedule everything and have the least number of conflicts. They both will have to stack games and concerts on top of each other in order to fit everything in before the holidays and they and I appreciate your understanding. In my own house I have an 8th grader who has missed a game and concert and a 10th grader who has missed three practices and a scrimmage.
Stay tuned to our website and Facebook for scheduling updates. Please remember that next Monday and Tuesday look questionable also, so the beginning of next week could very well be "next verse same as the first" no pun intended.
The real bummer for me this week is that I will probably not be able to get to every classroom as I usually do, but I am sure that the students and staff will be understanding.
Have a great rest of the week and weekend.
Chris
