Should school have been cancelled today?
UPDATE: It seems to be coming down pretty good today, doesn’t it? In addition to commenting on the topic posed earlier, can you tell us where you are and what conditions are like? My wife just e-mailed me to say that conditions in Chesterfield are basically white-out. I’m downtown and the snow is steady — but not that bad.
The earlier topic:
As I sit here, the very first flakes are starting to fall around my home in west county. My son is playing a video game on the couch, instead of sitting in school, where he would just be arriving at this moment.
My daughter in under a bundle of bedclothes, instead of awaiting her ride to school, which would just be showing up at this moment.
They would have been released from school seven hours from now.
In the meanwhile, we are told that heavy snow that threatened to “is behind schedule — bust still on its way.”
And the list of schools closed is extremely lengthy.
Do you think school should have been closed today? What do you suppose goes into the decision to close school? Even if heavy snow came, could it have been cleared in time to let students come and go?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
I think it’s funny that the area universities have the sense to call off afternoon and evening classes, but as of 15 minutes ago, public school districts such as Pattonville have not called off classes of any type, or at any time.
School disctricts have GOT to put state funding issues aside when it comes to matters of student safety. There is no reason children should be in school at this moment; the roads are getting increasingly worse.
It’s sad that money is ultimately the real reason these school districts put the lives of our children at risk.