As the remnants of the Blizzards of 2010 linger, causing many of us to wonder when the last of the snow will melt, school officials in Harford County and elsewhere in the region faced the difficult question of when to send the kids back to school.
There's neither a clear nor a correct answer. Looking at Harford County Monday, it was hard to see how the kids could go back to school the next day. They didn't. That next day, it was nearly as hard to envision them going back to school Wednesday. They did.
Therein rests the conundrum. If it wasn't safe for kids to go back to school Wednesday, then when would it be? With temperatures cool enough to not make much of an impression on the crippling snow, there wouldn't be much of a difference Thursday or Friday. So if they couldn't go back to school Wednesday, they couldn't go back to school the rest of the week.
That would have been two consecutive weeks without school, an unprecedented school closure for an unprecedented snow. (That doesn't factor in early forecasts of rain, snow or a mix for Monday and/or Tuesday.)
The compromise -- to open schools two hours late for the rest of the week -- was a reasonable decision. Though it makes the most sense, I don't think too many caring adults, including the school officials who made the decision, are comfortable watching kids clamber over piles of ice and snow on their way to school.
-- Ted Hendricks
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