ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Snow covers the pier at Fisherman’s Beach in Swampscott on Friday.
The closing announcements started popping up before the first flake fell on Friday: “Marblehead schools are closed”…”Saugus Public Schools are closed today”…”St. Mary’s closed…stay warm.” The list continued to grow as a light snow turned into a coating, then an inch or two of snow with Lynn Public Schools absent from the list.
By noon Friday, the social media and word-of-mouth consternation over the omission could be heard above the grind of heavy plow blades clearing city streets. Why were kids sent to school? Isn’t it risky to have them negotiating clogged sidewalks from school to home?
Both questions are serious ones that lie at the center of any parent’s concerns for their child’s safety. But there are other important concerns that cannot be forgotten in the “close or not to close” equation.
Closing schools is a financial, as well as a safety decision that, when it comes down to decision time, gets weighed by a handful of people. Superintendent Catherine Latham, Public Works Commissioner Andrew Hall and Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy have to balance several considerations when they decide to keep schools open or to close them.
Obviously, safety is concern number one. Snow had barely fallen on Friday when bells sounded signaling the start of another school day. Students leaving schools — the ones who were not pulled out by parents who showed up at schools during the day — walked home in a half-foot of wet snow, with visibility marginal on local streets.
Anyone who is quick to condemn city officials for opening schools on Friday should consider another important factor that goes into the “open or close” decision-making process. Like all parents, Lynn mothers and fathers must juggle work and childcare decisions in the event school is closed.
Sure, some parents can “work from home” and others can take a day off. Still others can take a child to work, to the amusement or aggravation of coworkers. But what about the parents who don’t have any of these options? What does someone working a second job following a night shift do if schools are closed?
Let’s face it: 21st-century schools aren’t just education institutions — they also feed, discipline and counsel kids — so before we condemn decisions to keep them open or closed when nature turns nasty, let’s remember the decision must be one that balances the considerations of all parents, not just the ones willing to gripe the loudest on social media.