Kids across Toronto were up early listening to news reports eagerly awaiting a two-word announcement: snow day.
Toronto District School Board (TDSB) spokeswoman Shari Schwartz-Maltz had a simple message for parents for Friday morning: “check the website and watch the news.”
The TDSB and its Catholic counterpart share transportation so they confer about bus cancellations, but students were likely hoping for more drastic action — like the call the boards made two years ago when a storm threatened to dump 30 centimetres of snow in the GTA.
Both boards cancelled school buses on Friday morning.
The Toronto school boards decided to cancel classes on Feb. 2, 2011, during the infamous “Snowmageddon” when forecasters said a massive storm would hit the GTA. The snowfall total fell well-below the forecast coming in around 10 centimetres.
Spokewoman Emmy Milne of the Toronto Catholic District School Board said the decision to close schools is a “very uncommon scenario.”
“Both boards decided jointly that given what was being forecast in terms of road conditions and hazardous driving … they opted to close the systems down,” she said of the 2011 class cancellation.
Schwartz-Maltz said the two boards would discuss transportation problems first thing Friday morning.
“At 5 a.m. when we know there’s adverse weather, the head of the [transit] consortium will confer with both the head of the TDSB busing and the head of the Catholic board, and they make the decision about busing,” she said.
“For a full snow day, that’s the call of the director of education for the TDSB,” she said. “So if it’s really bad, she’s in on the call too and they’ll make the decision about whether or not to close schools.”
I am so disappointed with the school boards who made a very poor decision about keeping schools open. Teachers are asked to help children make ‘good’ decisions based on the information around them and here we have Boards making unsafe decisions. Schools are not an essential service – education does not support life or death. Asking parents and educators to come out when road conditions are dangerous is absolutely uncalled for. When police are asking people to stay off the roads then any service that is not essential should comply. The world will not fall apart! When schools stay open at the risk of causing harm to families then the education system becomes nothing more than an expensive babysitting service. Do you really think that teachers can teach subjects when many children are kept at home and classrooms may at best are at best half of their regular size? Come on and get real….we live in Canada….let everyone have a snow day and be Canadian. I also suggest that parents and boards do a survery and see how many school/classrooms watched videos today! And then tell us schools are not daycares during these days!
I do have kids and I agree with the people here that are saying we were all “tougher” back in the day, because we were. Ok, so today was a bad day and it was great that they called a snow day. My question is, why they call snow days on not such bad days and most importantly, with all these days the kids get off, why not make up for all these lost days when the teachers have the day off..oops or should I say…PA days. IN other words, use PA days to compensate for the snow days lost! Better yet, extend the school year to make up for lost days. God forbid, the teachers union would have a revolution if we took away a few days of their summer! Lazy buggers those teachers …with 6 digit salaries alot of them too!
6 digit salaries really? a lot of them? Not even close to true.
get your facts straight please. Opinions are one thing-such as calling teachers “lazy buggers” and even if I disagree with you, that is your opinion and I will respect that. However, when you state facts as if they are the truth and you are wrong, I will call you on it. Teachers do not make 6 digit salaries never mind you commenting on “A lot of them too”
In Toronto, today was NOT a snow day and teachers work on PA days anyway. The students are off, not the staff.
Um… why are people slamming teachers for the snow day today? The TDSB didn’t call a snow day, the schools are OPEN!!!! And the teachers don’t call it, the board does. And today, they didn’t. But they probably should have.
The reality is, neither streets nor school driveway were cleared this morning or at the lunch hour. It’s not the snow falling that has people freaking, it’s the dangers of the slippery unplowed streets.
I would prefer the TDSB call it a snow day if they don’t have the resources to clear a path for those of us who did take their kids in today. We did not return after lunch.
WHEN I WAS A KID… We had a few snow days here and there and you know what….? They were AWESOME!
Life is short, make it sweet! Have some FUN, TAKE A DAY OFF, REVEL IN THE SNOW STORM and have a hot cocoa.
Peace peeps.
Agree with you here.
If it’s not safe to have school bus service, why is it safe for parents to drive their kids to school on such a day? If school bus service is cancelled due to bad weather, the school should also be closed for student. Teachers can use the day for PA or catch up work. My son’s high school classes only have 4 to 5 students today. It seems the “director of education” was sleep in this morning and not doing his/her job…
To Djjudy,
I completely agree with you. If the board could not provide enough support staff to plow the school parking lot and sidewalks, for the safety of its staff and students, then they should have called a snow day. It’s ridiculous. It’s been continuously snowing since the morning and nothing was plowed. How safe is that?!
Schools closed or not, many kids will not be in school today. I can assure you that your kids are not doing much today in school if they are there because so many students will be away. It will be treated like the last day of school before christmas break, or march break. No fault to the teachers, why would you continue with teaching lessons when 75% of the students are not there, just sot hey can fall behind? Many teachers will use it as a day to have students “catch up” or review. So, you might as well keep them at home where it is safer, if you have that option. Being on a mat leave right now, I saw two young girls walking to school (elementary) and both slip at the same time and fall on the road, thankfully no traffic was coming at the time and they seemed fine. Drivers are in too big of a rush right now and not watching the young kids outside walking, it can be very dangerous, if I had a school aged child I would have had them at home with me today.
Back in my day, we had the army clean up our roads…
Seriously guys, give it a break about how tough you folks were back in the day. We get it. Back in your day you didn’t have to deal with the insane amount of traffic compared to now or, getting a flu shot.
And lets be real, even back in your day, you wished you didn’t go to school during the snow storm. Only reason you had to was because your parents forced you to go.
with that being said, school was never closed, it was always open. Just the buses were cancelled, so if you lived in town, you were pretty much expected to show up.
Guess I was lucky, I grew up in the country. My school was about 30Km’s away, and we would enjoy snow days about twice a month, about 20 years ago.
I was also born and raised in Toronto and I remember at least 7 separate snow days. We were just talking about it the other day. So maybe the memory of some are bad and they just don’t remember. We had them. And they were awesome.
Look the fact if the matter is that it is not safe to go any where let alone work or school. The people that are criticizing the youth of today do not have kids and are probably retired. But i assure everyone that if one of the kids of teachers were to die today or any other day when there were weather warnings they would definitely shut down schools in the future even if it were a couple of centimeters.
Look the fact is.. DEATH is certain.. you and I will eventually die one day.. get over it, go outside.. yes i know I’m a troll
everyone making “back in my day” comments should be ignored. honestly. up hill, through a snowstorm, barefoot
we get it, you were tougher than kids these days. you had grit, and heart, and you could walk through a pit of burning shards of glass. we get it. honestly.
i am going to make the assumption that most of you who are criticizing kids getting the day off probably don’t have kids.
LOL back in my day they’d call you a Shmuck! Shhhhh forbinsmocking, we’re trying to criticize these kids so they don’t turn FAT.. it’s a conspiracy to get them active again so they don’t get criticized when they grow up and begin to work in the job force.. otherwise we’d have everyone calling in sick! We’re trying to be charismatic
LOL
I agree with Dayton, JoeToronto and tulips….lol. It’s a big joke! The school boards shut down the system for no reason whatsoever. When I was a kid we used to trek through the blizzards on foot to get to school and the teachers were always there….so were all the kids! People today are total whimps and parents keep their kids in a plastic bubble…no wonder they’re all such spoiled brats today! As for the “teachers” of today…they’re one big joke!!!
And then now all we need is a TV Station to air on Robot Chicken and South Park for all the kids to watch then we’d all be doomed!
We need more teachers who had those modern style mullets to keep discipline in to school, won’t make your sharp but certainly not a whimp!
HAHA Remember the day teachers were allowed to pull you by the ear to the principals office..
Yup! I remember the shovelled snow in the school yard was so high that it was higher that the fence and we could burrow tunnels into the heap (much to the dismay of our teachers). I NEVER stayed home as a TDSB kid and my walk to school on a good day was 10-15 minutes.
These comments read like a bunch of butt-hurt people who wish THEY had a snow day but since they DON’T they need to poo-poo. Sour grapes much? BTW I don’t have a snow day, I’m at work right now.
I know what you mean, my boss would make us all come in on a fire storm raining fireballs! But he is at home and we are at work. He has a wifi robot (no lie it’s called SpyKee Robot.. I know my boss is Asian but smart..), it has a webcam, speaker and mic and he can remotely move it around and see what we are doing and talk to us. THAT SUCKS! He’d drive it up to you ask you how the project is coming along, then he’d say he’s sipping on mocha hot chocolate next to a firepit watching TV…… that really sucks.. but it’s FRIDAY and we get to leave early!
You said, “My boss is Asian, but smart”…. seriously, please tell me this was a mistake and you didn’t mean to sound this horrible.
As for the robot boss…. that is a little far fetched. But interesting if true.
I had to come into work today, downtown. BUT, we are allowed to leave at 2PM, AND our bosses are giving us Pizza for coming in.
Make you wanna hijack that robot, drive it in your bosses office and play Gangnam style on the speaker and make the robot try to dance to it.. hehehe
SNOW DAY! = Teachers go out and party then night before and if they are hung over, they call it snowed in!
Are you people for really. Think about the children. Abviously you care only about yourself. Grow up. If its bad weather the school boards should close. Picture your kid on the road and someone hits them because they road was too slippery or didn’t seem them due to the winds… Do you want to know the outcome.
They don’t even wait for the snow to arrive anymore, the call a snow day based on the forecast.
What a joke.
I grew up in Toronto aswell, and I can remember at least 4 snow days. Also, last time I checked the TEACHERS do not make the call to have a snow day, the Director of Education does who works for the TDSB, not the teachers.
I was born and raised in Toronto and we NEVER had snow days and believe you me, the blizzards back in the day were monster storms. No storm used to close up businesses or schools. Any excuse for the teachers to get a day off. Unreal.
I’m 38, and I don’t recall staying home from my TDSB schools. I can even remember walking to high school one day (which was opened) because the TTC bus immediately in front of my bus got stuck climibing up a steep hill…
I agree to a certain point, but the # of car were not as many as as now.
where in toronto were you born, and NEVER had a snow day? I can name two such days and I was born and raised here as well….how old are you?
you’re
I wish I could still get snowdays
Because the forecaster are so incapable of getting it right now a days, and because of the last time they believed the reports from forecasters, only to have it backfire, I highly, highly doubt that classes will be cancelled tomorrow for most schools. They will cancel transportation, that’s without a doubt, but if you can make it to school, there will be some one there to watch your child.
Mark my words, I doubt there will be any class cancellations tomorrow.
mark my words on this your wrong on thinking the weather wont be very bad tomorrow morning
I stand corrected…. I am very shocked that they closed most schools today.
This morning i see university of Ryerson , York , uot closed.Then i tell my daughter to stay home.She said she had 3 tests It was very .hard for me to make up my mind.It’s a nightmare for me to drive today. Actually she watch movies at school. I feel like stupid today