Yes, and cold, snowy weather is one of the many reasons that I now live in sunny Southern California. I've never again lived in a place with a cold climate since I was 18 years old and moved away from there. ~
There was no such thing as a snow day back then and there were no yellow buses. I remember one day the school closed because of extreme cold. Nowadays the snow days are determined by whether the school and city buses can be used. We actually have FOG days. Ridiculous.
We averaged about 5 snow days a year when I went to school . Unfortunately, since snow was common, there had to be at least 8-10 inches of it (or the potential for that much, prior to 10 am) before they'd cancel school. When you'd wake up hours before sunrise and yet the windows showed bright daylight outside, you knew there was snow - and a lot of it! At 5 am you'd quickly tune into the local radio station praying to hear those 4 precious words - "all schools are closed" (school was never canceled prior to 6 am unless it was canceled the previous day). Living on the side of a mountain was a plus, as as there were only a few schools in the county and they were located towards the bottom of the mountain. So even if only a few inches of snow fell at school, feet of it may have fallen higher up (and the roads up there weren't paved so busses had a hard time traversing them in snow). The rules stated that if the busses couldn't get to at least 85% of students, school would be canceled - regardless of how much was on the school grounds. The only downside was that the schools only factored in 3 snow days per year. If there were more than that, we had to make them up at the end of the school year (there was no set date for the last day of school until April). One year we had so much snow that we didn't get out until July. However, on the rare occasions when there were no snow days, spring break lasted 3 days longer. But if we got to school and THEN they canceled school (even if we were only there for an hour), it counted as a school day and we didn't have to make it up. Unfortunately, practically everyone owned a snow blade and a 4WD truck, so all roads were quickly cleared (even back roads), meaning there'd be school the following day (the county had more sand than a seashore so ice was rarely a problem).
Umm....we did used to sit on the heat vent in my parents room with a blanket as kids and listen to the radio to hear if the buses in our school division were running or not? If they mostly weren't we could stay home.
Now I don't think they ever close the school here for "Snow days" or even if it's -45 degrees Celsius. Some parents are crazy enough to send their kids out walking to school in -40 weather so the school makes sure the doors are at least unlocked when the poor kids get there so they don't freeze to death.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at December 30, 2017 12:56 PM MST
I grew up in NYS near Lake Ontario. Our snowfall was legendary. Did school close? Sometimes, but 9x out of 10 we stayed awake all night watching the news knowing there was a snowday "tomorrow" and then it would snow 10in.over night instead of 12 so we would have to go.
We didn't close unless there was some monster snow or an ice storm. PERIOD!. Now they close when it gets below 20 or there is 6 inches overnight. We never, ever, ever had school close because it was too cold back then. They close for every little thing in upstate NY now.
Benedict Arnold 