School Buses Begot Snow Days

Snow has been an issue this 2018, Central Illinois fall. I recall our first sight of the white stuff occurred on October 12 and it appears that an area record amount for November will be recorded.
Our middle school Spanish teaching daughter bemoaned the calling off of school one day this week sighting that having these earlier in the year snow days points to extending attendance days into June.

My experience with school and snow provides an interesting philosophical transformation. I will not tell you that I walked to school three mile to and from and uphill both directions. I will tell you that during more 12-years East St. Louis public school's attendance, I never rode a school bus except to after school extra-curricular events. Grades 1-to-3 found me walking 3/4 of a mile to Charles L. Manners School. Grades 4-&-5 saw me trudging a 1/2 mile to Woodrow Wilson School and my sixth through tenth grades years, I rode city buses greater distances. By the time I reached my high school junior year, I either drove a family car, rode with a friend or hitchhiked. Never a school bus to pick me up in the morning and deliver me home in the afternoon.

Never was School called off for a snow event. I can't recall a specific instance when I stayed home from school because of a snow storm...I'm sure there was a time when my mother said, "You're not going to school today because there's too much snow." Just don't recall. I do recall staying home to watch World Series games back in those years because those games were played in the afternoon.

So here we are in the public school days of 2018. One camp may claim the belief that society today is more caring for and aware of  public school children and their parents' NEEDS. Then, I would imagine many folks perhaps think this school transportation thing is an expensive crutch.

I do know this: 1) The school administrator who makes the early morning decision to proclaim a 'snow day' cannot win. That individual is going to catch hell from parents and or local merchants either way.
And know this> It is a big deal, this school bus thing. In fact, I believe no longer is public education's focus on 'reading, writing and 'rithmatic,' but instead parents' greatest concern is about the Three 'B's'
...Beans, Buses and Basketball. "Is my kid getting a good lunch at low cost; Is the Bus picking my little ones up at the doorstep and is my kid getting a fair chance from the coach?