There's No School Today!

First of all, let me back up and tell you the story.

Alright, so first off, I live in Oregon. It's in the rainy part of the United States. It means we usually get craploads of rain, but never any snow. So when we do get snow, then everything erupts in snow fever.

From this Monday to this Friday, that should have been the week before Winter Break. Winter Break is the long vacation students get for what started as Christmas and ended up as “The Holidays.”

So I got up last Sunday, and I was mostly ready for school. Then 5 pm came, and it frigging snowed. Snowed. Outside. With no warning.

School was cancelled. And that's when the first few thoughts of, “School's out for the week,” started happening. But I was equally quick to think, “Nah, it'll never happen.” It seemed like a pipe dream, after all.

I spent the snow day doing thing, probably the same thing I'd do if it were the first day of Winter Break. I was aided in the fact that I didn't really have any pressing homework to do for Tuesday.

But then it happened. Again.

They canceled school, right at about 5 pm again. It was pretty nice having two days.

But that's when the feelings of grandeur came flowing in. There was snow on the ground, and it would be freezing cold the whole week. Everyone couldn't help but think that school would be canceled for the whole week.

Wednesday came along and there was no school. But this time, Beaverton School District (hereafter referred to as BSD) decided to make things interesting. They didn't immediately cancel school at 5pm, even though there was snow on the ground and it was going to be cold tomorrow. They said those fateful words of

“Good Evening, the Beaverton School District is closely monitoring the national weather forecast and consulting with our local weather service to make a call for Thursday (12/18/2008). No decision has been made at this time. We will decide by 10:00 p.m. tonight or may wait until 5:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. We need more information on the cold weather pattern that may be developing.”

Thankfully, they told us at about 8pm there was no school, but they had me going for a bit.

As it turned out, Thursday was warmer than freezing, which meant all the snow melted and it was sunny. Cold, but sunny. But it left Friday hanging.

And that's where the story really starts. My parents were saying there would be school tomorrow. The weather said it would be freezing. BSD wasn't saying anything. There was nothing to go off of. And it didn't look like it would be an obvious call.

“The Beaverton School District is closely monitoring changing conditions, and consulting with our local and national weather services to make a call for Friday. No decision has been made at this time. We will decide by 10:00 p.m. tonight (Thursday) or may wait until 5:00 a.m. tomorrow (Friday) morning.”

The standard canned response. Things got a bit more frantic as time went on. BSD's website got more and more bogged down as time went on. Then, right at 10pm, my friend in the know tells me,

“Good evening, no decision will be made regarding the status of school operations until Friday morning. Our greatest concern at this time is the possibility of black ice on side roads and at higher elevations. A team will be driving the roads at 3:30 a.m., and a decision will be posted before 5:30 a.m. Thank you again for your patience as we continue to monitor the safety of our students and staff.”

It's not a no, I'll say that.

So I had to debate, do my homework? Get up early to check? I decided to get up at 5am and check.

I checked. Nothing. So I wasted some time, waited around, checked a few more times, and got this;

“Schools Closed to Students and Staff, Friday (12/19/2008). All Activities and Events Cancelled. Administration Facilities Open to Essential Staff”

That's it! We won! We beat BSD! No school for a whole week.

Now I just wish I knew about it ahead of time so I could have put it to good use.