School Days, School Days, Dear Old Snow and Flu Days…
Cidu Bill on May 27th 2009
Just wondering… Has anybody ever heard of “flu days”? Other than during this year’s Swine Flu Panic, that is. Seriously, can somebody explain why we’re treating this like Son of the Black Plague? Sure, it can be a dangerous illness — but so can “seasonal flu” (a term apparently nobody needed until this year; think “analog clock”), which so far has killed, no exaggeration, more than one thousand times as many Americans this year as Swine Flu has.New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said yesterday, “Our hearts go out to their families” of two New Yorkers who apparently died from Swine Flu last week, adding “as for everybody who died of other causes last week, hey, life’s a bitch.”
Filed in Bill Bickel, Jan Eliot, Stone Soup, comic strips, comics, humor, swine flu | 23 responses so far
Cidu Bill May 27th 2009 at 01:27 pm 1
And yes, Alex could be referring to the fact that their school was closed this year because of Swine Flu — but the way she refers to “snow and flu days” strongly suggests these are both common annual occurrences.
HM May 27th 2009 at 02:18 pm 2
Well, I know that occasionally around here we have individual schools close (as opposed to the whole school system) when a high enough proportion of the students and teachers are sick with some contagious bug–usually the flu, but sometimes something else.
And last year my daughter’s school had to add a day (after already “giving back” one of the built in snow days) after having to close when the power was out for 2 days when a tornado came through. I guess you never know what is going to mess with the schedule!
Kevin Andresen May 27th 2009 at 02:27 pm 3
In this case, “flu days” were front page news across America in early May. Taking that into consideration, don’t you think they’d be as well known as any “common annual occurrence” would be to a 10-year-old “Alix” (<- and speaking about surprisingly common things, from when or where did that spelling come?)?
Brent May 27th 2009 at 02:34 pm 4
The only thing I’ve seen add days to the school year has been teacher’s strikes… but I suppose other things that shut down a school for long enough would do the same.
I don’t think it “strongly” suggests that they’re a common occurrence. After all, there must be some threshold for when adding days is deemed necessary (like two weeks lost as opposed to just a couple snow days in a regular year). The fact that Alex is calling them by a name here simply means that that’s what she’s been told about them… the rate of occurrence could be once a century and she’d be saying the same thing.
Ellie May 27th 2009 at 02:45 pm 5
I’m just wondering what kind of Mickey Mouse operation this school system is, if they wait until the end of May to add on days to make up for snow days. When I was in school, it was always automatically assumed that a day missed in the winter was tacked on at the end of the year.
BGneiss May 27th 2009 at 03:26 pm 6
As for why Swine Flu has gotten such a life of its own in the media: human beings are irresistably drawn to bad news and drama and impending doom. Every week there’s some new panic that sweeps the media, whether it be Swine Flu, the phthalates in plastics, or red dye #2. Humans seem to need to panic about some perceived threat to feel alive. It’s what we do.
Ted in Fort Lauderdale May 27th 2009 at 03:47 pm 7
I don’t know how snow days are scheduled up north - if they are always there in the calendar or handled as needed. Down here, we don’t schedule hurricane days (they aren’t that common), but if they happen, they _are_ made up. They try as possible to steal teacher work days and such to avoid lengthening the year. However, a couple of years ago, Palm Beach county schools were closed for about 2 weeks after a storm (mostly because of extended power outages) and they didn’t have places in the schedule to make up that much time, so they did tack on a week to the end of the school year.
A couple of schools (out of about 300) closed here in Broward for almost a week because of swine flu - I have no idea how they plan to make this up since all the schools are on the same schedule…
Cidu Bill May 27th 2009 at 04:00 pm 8
Every school district I’ve been part of in the Northeast has scheduled 183-day school years, leaving a slight cushion for the state-mandated 180-day school year. Spring break is usually where the books are balanced: If there were more than 3 snow days, days are removed from the vacation; if there were fewer than 3, the vacation is extended.
I’m not sure how this works out in, say, Wisconsin, when snow remains a real possibility past spring break — but then again, they probably don’t use snow days unless there are three feet of snow on the ground and it’s still coming down in sheets.
Size May 27th 2009 at 04:16 pm 9
Cidu Bill, I’m in Michigan and you pretty much got it right. I think my district did 185 days, but we pretty much just kept going in the snow. In the last few years, there have been a couple closures due to extreme cold (can’t have the kids standing out at the bus stop), which was not common when I was a youth.
We always made up any missing days at the end of the year, but it was rare for that to be necessary. In the last couple years, some municipalities have run out of money set aside for salt trucks and snow ploughs, so I imagine that might throw things off kilter a bit.
CIDU Bill May 27th 2009 at 04:25 pm 10
My town is essentially built on a roller-coaster track — a very spread-out roller-coaster track — so most of our snow days result not from any real volume of snow but because there just physically isn’t time to get all the roads clear enough for the buses to run safely. We have very few snow days, but a LOT of delayed openings.
Julie May 27th 2009 at 05:22 pm 11
I”m from Minnesota and we had built-in snow days as well (I don’t remember the exact amount). I don’t remember ever having to make-up days. I think they usually tried to do 2-hr late openings to avoid that. So, to cancel school there did have to be a lot of snow and it also had to be quite windy to make conditions worse.
Kate C May 27th 2009 at 06:21 pm 12
I don’t think it’s really fair to be all outraged and “Kids today are so spoiled” re: schools closing for swine flu. When the first cases were diagnosed, very little was known about it–we did not know how easily it was spread, or how deadly it was. Schools did not close willy-nilly either–the only ones to close in my neck of the woods were ones were students had been diagnosed (and even then, the schools opened back up after few people died or even had to be hospitalized). We were traeting it like a serious public health issue because it seriously had to potential to be one.
Charlene May 27th 2009 at 09:20 pm 13
It isn’t just that: regular flu generally kills the elderly and the very ill, while swine flu is much more likely to target healthy people under fifty. Healthy kids are more likely to get regular flu, but swine flu is much more likely to kill them.
And up here in Canada we don’t have snow days, at least not in the cities. They don’t care if it’s fifty below with six feet of snow (although both don’t happen together normally): school is open.
Usual John May 28th 2009 at 12:11 am 14
It’s fairly common for schools to be closed during a local flu outbreak. The one in the strip did not necessarily have anything to do with swine flu.
Carl May 28th 2009 at 07:09 am 15
“Alix” as a name is at least 1,000 years old. It’s a French equivalent of “Alice”.
Bill May 28th 2009 at 08:18 am 16
I used to live in Minnesota, and in the mid 1970’s we did close for the flu one year. The deciding factor was that more than 25% of the students were already out with the flu, and the impact of the disease could be lessened by preventing any more close contact at the school.
JosePluma May 28th 2009 at 11:07 am 17
No, swine flu is not more likely to kill healthy kids. There have been four fatalities in the US; one was a child who came from Mexico and had other health problems. No otherwise healthy kids in the US have died from the current H1N1 strain.
Scott May 28th 2009 at 12:09 pm 18
CIDU Bill, while I agree that we’ve overreacted, other countries have been even worse. I was just at a conference where a fair number of people from Japan and Europe canceled at the last minute because their countries wouldn’t let them back in if they returned with a cough.
Usual John May 28th 2009 at 12:31 pm 19
Oh, in answer to CIDU Bill’s original question: The reason why swine flu is being attacked so aggressively is that, if we can stop a new disease in its tracks, we prevent not merely the deaths of the people immediately at risk but every person who may ever be threatened by the disease. That’s quite different from diseases that are already in the population, where there typically is no real chance of eradication. For society as a whole, therefore, it makes sense to take much more aggressive steps against a new disease like swine flu, even though people who come into contact with it are individually less threatened by it than by other threats to their well-being.
Brian May 28th 2009 at 12:53 pm 20
Firstly, Bill, although there have been flu (or quarantine) days in the past, I don’t read Alix’s exclamation as implying a regular occurrence. Indeed, that her sister didn’t hear about it implies that it’s an unusual year that the school calendar has been extended.
Any rural school system or school system in the North should have some snow days built into its calendar.
Of course, this would be moot if the U.S. would discard its archaic 185-day school year and create a 220-day school year of four quarters each consisting of eleven weeks. We could work both snow & flu days into the schedule & still be ahead of the current school year.
L Wy May 28th 2009 at 05:12 pm 21
Actually, I just heard today that this outbreak of swine flu was less bad in the US than anticipated, particularly among senior citizens, because it is genetically similar to the flu targeted by the most recent flu shots given in the US. Makes sense to me.
Frank the curmudgeon May 28th 2009 at 10:07 pm 22
Brian - Your name is now guaranteed to be included in every “hit list” discovered in schools all across the country. Suggest a sojourn in the safety of Afganistan or even Pakistan.
Keera May 29th 2009 at 04:51 pm 23
Norway’s like Canada: We don’t have snow days, either.
As for the swine flu: It is more contagious than “regular” flu, but nowhere near as severe or as deadly (in its current form). However, the media managed to thoroughly confuse “pandemic” with “epidemic” and thus throw themselves and the rest of us into a panic.