Snow Days
Cidu Bill on Feb 26th 2008
Not a clue (and to save everybody some time, let’s stipulate that in some states school lets out in May while in others it lets out in June).
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Preteena, comic strips, comics, humor, snow | 18 responses so far
Arthur Feb 26th 2008 at 12:16 am 1
If the strip stopped before the last word balloon, the joke would be that Ted isn’t playing with a full deck. I think that last balloon is an attempt at another “full deck” expression, but it doesn’t seem to work.
By the way, there’s a large list of such expressions at http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/88q3/13889.html
Powers Feb 26th 2008 at 07:13 am 2
Yeah, I didn’t get this yesterday either but re-reading it today, I think Hugh is saying Ted had *so many* snow days when he was growing up that he didn’t learn enough in school.
Very lame, but that’s all I got.
(And of course, it ignores the fact that Ted is probably from Florida or something, where kids *aren’t* in school in June, or at least not for long.)
tristara Feb 26th 2008 at 07:29 am 3
some kids in Florida are in school until the END of June, even though school started in the beginning of August.
Plus in Florida while there are no snow days, there are occasionally hurricane weeks.
Tim Feb 26th 2008 at 07:53 am 4
There are a set amount of days set aside for snow days and when those days are used you have to make up that extra off time somewhere (at the end of the school year). Hence Ted having a lot of snow days growing up.
Hunt Feb 26th 2008 at 08:39 am 5
School years used to be shorter, ending in May. Having to go to school in June was a terrible fate, even if it was the result of snow days.
Lindsey ^_^ Feb 26th 2008 at 12:35 pm 6
It never snows here, and the most we ever get out for weather is if there is too much fog for the buses, which happened twice in my 13 years of school. But we still got out in June.
Schist Happens Feb 26th 2008 at 01:13 pm 7
June was definitely the wrong choice - there might have been a joke there if Ted had said April or May, when EVERY kid is going to school. Not a knee-slapper, but technically a joke.
audrey Feb 26th 2008 at 02:43 pm 8
well obviously he was so stupid he had to go to summer school every year
SeanG Feb 26th 2008 at 02:51 pm 9
If you have more snow days than are budgeted for a given year, you have to make them up by going to school for more days at the end of the year.
Lindsey ^_^ Feb 26th 2008 at 03:22 pm 10
I get that SeanG, but in a lot of parts of the country kids go to school in June regardless, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I went 13 years in the public school system here without having a single snow day (it doesn’t snow) and only maybe two 3-hour-late days because of fog, but the schools here still get out in June anyway.
Lola Feb 26th 2008 at 04:23 pm 11
I think this is more an age thing. When I went to school in Michigan (back in the Pleistocene epoch :), we got out when there was still at least a week left in May and didn’t start until the middle of September. I don’t live there anymore, but have relatives who do, and their grandkids all go until June now. You see, kids, we were smarter in those days, learned faster, so we could do that. Probably has more to do with mothers working, but I LIKE the “used to be smarter” explanation.
Schist Happens Feb 26th 2008 at 04:53 pm 12
And we never started back to school in the fall until after Labor Day, but it seems common for kids to start going back in August now.
Frank Feb 26th 2008 at 08:38 pm 13
In the old days in New England the public schools usually went from a couple of days after Labour Day through the third week in June. The private schools had a shorter year, say September 21st through May 10th. The Parochial schools somewhere in between. In rural areas adjustments were made for planting and harvest needs. Now days its seems that the kids go to school with maybe the month of july off. We learnt more then. Is Lindsey right? Were we smarter? No just more was expected of us.
Cidu Bill Feb 26th 2008 at 08:51 pm 14
At least in most of New York and New Jersey, “the old days” are still here: School begins a day or two after Labor Day and ends around June 20.
Charlene Feb 27th 2008 at 02:31 am 15
Here school has always begun around Labour Day (either the day after or the Thursday before, if in September) and lasted until June 30.
On the other hand, the schools here never close down for weather. Never. Until the Internet made communications easier, most students in Calgary had no idea that people in the US got a day off school if it snowed. Even now it makes me snicker.
Powers Feb 27th 2008 at 08:12 am 16
Good lord.
First of all, Frank, did it ever occur to you that maybe kids these days have *more to learn* then “back then”? Like, computers and technology? Schools are increasing the amount of education in health, home economics, music, art, and technology, but they can’t sacrifice reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic so the school year ends up being longer. TA DA!!
Charlene, to say that people in the US get a day off school “if it snow[s]” is misleading. That’s only true down south where they don’t have snowplows. Up here in New York, if the buses can safely travel the roads, school’s on. Are you saying they don’t cancel school in Calgary even if travel is dangerous?
bAT L. Feb 27th 2008 at 11:16 pm 17
It has to get really, really bad in Milwaukee to cancel schools. I’ve had school in the negative double digits, with several feet of snow, with the roads covered in an icy sheet, and even with ice chunks falling down from the sky. I guess Wisconsin just creates a different threshold for the stuff. After all, if we canceled school for every snowstorm we’ve had here, we’d be in school until June the next year! Maybe that’s what the comic means. … … Nah.
My early school years started in August and ended in June, but the university I go to now starts the day after Labor Day and ends mid-May, depending on when exams are.
Cidu Bill Feb 27th 2008 at 11:35 pm 18
Where I live it’s not the amount of snow that matters, but the traction: Our town was built on a roller coaster, and a small amount of ice can make it unsafe to run the school buses.
Friends from the midwest used to mock our frequent “snow days” — and then I visited the midwest and realized most of it’s flatter than Jeremy’s friend Hector. Well sure, it’s easy to say “our school buses run through eight inches of snow” when you don’t have to worry about making it up steep hills or stopping at the bottoms of them!