The Strait-Richmond Regional School Board cancelled classes in all schools today. Apparently there's a wicked storm underway. Thank God the children are safe. Not to mention the teachers and board administrators, union members all, right up to the superintendent. To be fair, there is snow visible in half of these highway cam images from the school board's catchment area, just none on the actual roads beings monitored. In case you missed Jim Meek's column on this subject in Saturday's Herald, you can find it here. Said Meek: My idea of hell is [CBC weather dude Peter] Coade broadcasting the weather forecast in an...

27 March, 2012

[caption id="attachment_9552" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Too damned many."][/caption] In response to my note about the 40-something Norwegian who had never seen a snow day until he came to Nova Scotia, Contrarian reader Joyce Rankin of Mabou Westmount blames consolidation of schools and secularization of society for the proliferation of snow days. Her response sparked a lively email debate. I remember we never used to have snow days either. But then again, we were close enough to school that we could walk. The questions to ask, for a proper comparison, would be how far children in Norway travel to school, and how far people drive to...

12 March, 2012

I met a Norwegian immigrant last night, a man in his 40s. He has lived in Nova Scotia for four years. At one point, the conversation turned to snow days. "You know," he said, "in 40 years in Norway, I never saw one snow day. Not from school. Not from work." Four years in Nova Scotia, and he's seen about 40. Just saying'....

07 March, 2012

Saint Mary's professor Larry Haiven thinks blaming unions for unnecessary snow days is silly: This is part of a syndrome of "if in doubt, blame the unions."  So convenient.  So wrong. A few years ago I was taking a tour of the new Toronto opera house.  We were allowed to go everywhere except on stage, even though the stage was bare, with no current production going on. One of the tour members asked the docent why we couldn't go on stage.  The tour member said he had been on tours of all the great opera houses of Europe and had never been barred...

07 March, 2010

Educational consultant Paul W. Bennett, a former principal of Halifax Grammar School, thinks we should not be too quick to dismiss the connection between unsnowy snow days and the provisions of the teachers' collective agreement. [T]he key factor [in school closures] is the collective agreement which has been in place in Nova Scotia since the mid-1970s. In that sense, the Education Department is just as culpable as the NSTU. The teachers' agreement originally included an understanding that about five days a year would be written off as "throw-away" snow days. The Agreement with the NSTU also stipulates...

07 March, 2010
Several readers have questioned, taken issue with, and even canceled subscriptions (!) over my criticism of overly cautious school closures, particularly my suggestion that union sympathies may play a role in unwarranted snow days.
Since when are school administrators (who make decisions about snow days) part of the teachers' union? [TB]
Snow days are decided upon by the School Board. The teachers and their union have nothing to do with it. Teachers have to show up on snow days to babysit any kids dropped off by parents. The fact that you are so silly as to blame Unions—good heavens how silly!—I have now figured you out: Another Conservative who will blame the victims for all the country's ills. [AMcG]
At least in HRSB, the school officials who make the call are school board Superintendents - not unionized, but management. [AB]
Another possible explanation is the requirement to please big, risk-averse insurance companies. [BW]
OK, so now I've done what I should have done before posting, checked with Peter McLaughlin, my ex-Daily News colleague who now speaks for the Nova Scotia Department of Education. Turns out the situation is at once more complicated than I suggested, and less clearcut than my interlocutors believe. Full explanation after the jump.
06 March, 2010

This is what a snow day looks like in Nova Scotia in 2010: Ridiculous. Ludicrous. How does this happen? Is it yet more proof that Environment Canada/CBC weather hysteria has destroyed our ability to distinguish normal weather from that which is dangerous? Is it further evidence of our society's atrophied ability to assess and manage risk? Of our obsession with danger? Have we become a nation of 'fraidy cats? A friend offers an alternative explanation: They haven't filled their quota of snow days. Gotta get 'em in, in other words, like the employee who makes sure to take all her available sick days,...

03 March, 2010