On-line classes canceled because of weather?
What are we missing here? Madison’s public schools refuse to reopen its 52 school buildings for in-classroom teaching. They’ve been largely shuttered since last March. What teaching remains is conducted on-line, via computer. Madison is expecting four inches of snow today 02-04-21, so classes have been cancelled.
Huh?!
You heard right. MMSD is canceling on-line classes! Inside! Via computer! Where it is warm and cozy. WHY? Because the weather forecast predicts snow. Outside. In the Great Outdoors.
Maybe the indentured servants at Blaska Stately Manor are not woke enough. Like every tiresome old man, we really did walk a mile through blizzards to our one-room country school (Oak Lawn in rural Sun Prairie). As a 6-year-old. No one told us we were a victim. Maybe that’s our problem today. So we make this suggestion to all 27,000 victims of the madison Metropolitan School District: Get your on-line education HERE at Blaska Policy Werkes!
Ol’ Sparky, our Eisenhower-era mainframe computer is oiled up and firing on both cylinders (fire extinguisher at the ready). The gray lab coats are ready to learn you kids real good! On-line, on time, our dime. Mouth and nasal passages covered several face masks deep. Hands sheathed in powder-free nitrile gloves. Pumping hand sanitizer from an orphanage-size barrel like it was black gold. Statue of Saint Fauci bathed in heavenly light.
Today’s lesson: Don’t be such a snowflake! Do not shut down on-line learning because you expect a little snow!
In the meantime:
Reopen the public schools today! The science says it is safe! (Remember science?) Frankly, we’ve given up on the Progressive Dane school board; they are owned by the teachers union. Tell the state legislature to withhold state financial aid until Madison’s 52 school buildings reopen. (More here.) The State of Iowa is already doing so. No, none of Madison’s Democrats will go up against Madison Teachers Inc. either, so …
⇒ Direct your pleas to State Rep. Jon Plumer whose 42nd Assembly District dips down into Dane County. and Rep. Barbara Dittrich whose 38th encompasses the eastern tier of Dane County.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: It’s all about Equity. After one parent complained, his school’s principal responded: “The explanation we’ve been given is that because there are students/families who rely on the MSCR Cares program being open to engage in virtual learning, it would be inequitable to hold school.” The parent comments: “So they shut down the entire system. Unbelievable!”
Blaska Policy Werkes 
21 responses to “Who is running Madison’s schools? Chicken Little?”
I know, like and respect an “area man” who is a teacher. Despite his strong reputation as a teacher, he openly argued that “virtual snow days” are necessary because of the “joy” that they bring.
MEANWHILE, that swooshing sound you is the “passing sound” of the Chinese and others who take education seriously. With education leadership such as this, we are destined to be second-rate.
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“MEANWHILE, that swooshing sound you is the “passing sound” of the Chinese and others who take education seriously.”
True except when it comes to the DOJ and Yale University….
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/03/963666724/justice-department-drops-race-discrimination-lawsuit-against-yale-university
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As the students suffer, The MMSD is ready for Saturday Night Live…what a joke they are.
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According to my neighborhood blog, the reason for the closure is due to the many MSCR cares sites where elementary students spend their school days. When the schools closed but continued the virtual education, those students may not have had the chance to attend school. This created an “equity” issue. Supposedly that is what prompted the entire shut down, along with the fact there are two “snow” days built in the schedule. That was the explanation given and I just thought I would pass it on.
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This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. Aside from our personal history walking to school in 3′ snowdrifts uphill each way, well, jeez, isn’t online what’s saving kids nowadays from such trauma?! Sheesh.
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As I said, the stupid — it hurts.
And so far we have gotten hardly any snow (as of midday anyway).
Did you see the remarkable news out of the most liberal city on Earth? The City of San Francisco sued its own public school board for malfeasance and negligence. They have had the option of opening schools there since last September but have stubbornly kept them shuttered. They have no concrete plan to reopen even though their private and parochial schools have been open since last September with barely a handful of cases.
Are public school “leaders” antiscience, incompetent, lazy, or under the thumb of repressive teacher unions…. or all of the above?
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What do you expect? Look at who is on the school board (that we elected). We need a group of like minded people that have the interests of the students as their priority all running against the current members as a group and running at the same time. One or two rational pragmatic people on the board will do nothing.
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Given the current political climate here in Madistan, the teachers union and progressive dane have the reins and will drive this wagon any screaming passengers in the back will be censored or silenced..
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Seems “Weird Al” Yankovic said it best: “When I Was Your Age…” in 1992.
“Well, nobody ever drove me to school when it was ninety degrees below
We had to walk buck naked through forty miles of snow
Worked in the coal mine twenty two hours a day for just half a cent
Had to sell my internal organs just to pay the rent”
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Is it at all possible to bring a class action suit against teacher unions to have them dissolved? For the same reason Reagan did with the air traffic controllers union when he was President? Detrimental to the safety (and intellectual education) of American school students.
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Like the way you think. Air traffic controllers engaged in illegal strike, giving Reagan cause to fire. Madison teachers held what amounted to illegal strike during Act 10 protests in 2011. School board even sought injunctive relief. Judges would not grant.
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An interesting idea, Mike.
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There exists a Legal Niche for Educational Malpractice.
The Gotch
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I wonder whether we will see more closure days ahead with the below zero temperatures? I think the general guideline is school is canceled when the wind chill is -25° Or lower,, which we will likely see.
I have an idea, maybe instead of closing schools when 3 to 6 inches of snow is predicted, the City starts plowing the streets sooner! That would make travel much easier. I think the current policy is only clear the main arteries and bus routes while it is snowing. All other streets are only done when the snow ends. I know this saves money, but keeping the streets cleared is important. I think many businesses close because they know our streets will be such a mess. As it turned out, yesterday’s roads were snow covered but passable, heck we drove across town for a 2:30 appointment to receive our first Covid vaccine shot without any issues.
I remember when Cheryl Whilhout (sp) was a new MMSD superintendent in the mid-90’s maybe. She was from a warmer climate -maybe S Carolina. One of the first snow falls was predicted to be 5” and she cancelled Madison schools. People were really upset, Madison only closed if Metro buses were called off the roads. I remember the news stations doing stories about the fact that Madison closed school for a little snow! At that time, it was unheard of to cancel school when we might get 5” of snow. What a bunch of wimps some people have become!
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The Madison public schools are fully online still…. why in the world would they “close” due to snow or cold in the first place when they are all online in the first place???
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Blessed Sacrament nuns closed school when it was 35 below because the boilers couldn’t keep up. Wind chill hadn’t been invented yet.
Now we are ruled by the bedwetters. We will die of ozone holes, climate heat (look out the window), Trump! Russia!, acid rain, polar vortices, Covid 19, Covid 20, Extinction, Trump!, Russia.
Closer to home we see, repeatedly, that the damn teachers don’t want to be in classrooms. Can’t blame ’em since that is where they get cussed out, threatened, beaten, second guessed on every disciplinary call based on ever changing BEPs, Equity Lenses and tune in next week.
So interesting to see Madison’s Education Industrial Complex as the vanguard of the American Cultural Revolution.
Someone please furnish the Covid body count from Madison parochial schools.
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Time to repair to the Republican Club, quaff a few, and have a lot of laughs over how Republicans vanquished Mask-Mad Evers in only…….scritchscratchscrith…….NINE months!
Yah, that was a big, big victory. Wow. Generations of children will be in awe of the courage!
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I would like to thank the Madison teachers for demonstrating over this past year that they’re not only non-essential, they’re not needed at all. The district can contract with a provider of online curriculum for the lowest bid, from anywhere in the world. when do the MMSD properties go up for sale?
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Heh! Good answer…good answer…like the way you think…The Gotch is going to be WATCHING YOU!
The Gotch
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The seal-like progressive voters of Madison happily voted for a $350 million physical infrastructure referendum for schools that may be closed for 2 years if not longer.
The stupid, it hurts.
Madison teachers union may very well demand 100% guarantee that no one will ever die of a viral illness before they agree to return to in person instruction.
Translation: Never.
Meanwhile the real-time data all over the country has made it clear that schoolchildren from low-income households, many of them nonwhite, are falling even further behind. Some may NEVER regain learning lost.
Yet the womxn of colour that make up the Madison school board are silent about all this. You can be sure that if the majority of teachers were white males, or male of any background, those womxn would be on the warpath loudly demanding that the teachers get their azzes back in the classroom.
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I asked an exchange student from Mali if his fellow high schoolers could find Mali on a map:
“They can’t find Mexico.” he said.
He was serious.
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