Schools closed due to Y2K??

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Just before Jim Lord left Westergaard, one of his Tip of the Week columns was about preparing to homeschool your kids for a while. The logic was that during nearly any disaster, schools are used as shelters, etc., therefore one could anticipate that public schools would be thus used for Y2K.

Makes very good sense to me, it was just so during the Ice Storm of Jan 1998. Many schools were closed for weeks.

Has anyone heard anything about this? I have stashed some home-schooling guides and workbooks (that sound you hear is the residual echoes of my kid groaning). I read some words about the US Dept of Education report on Y2K (We bureaucrats are on the ball!), but it sounds to me that the public schools were WAY behind the curve. Makes me wonder if the schools will be ready to handle their role as shelters come January.

Comments, anyone?

-- Arewyn (isitthatlate@lready.com), October 06, 1999

Answers

If there is no power or no heating fuel or no water or no sewage or no gasoline for busses or cars, there will certainly be no schools. There was some discussion at the school my daughter attended last year about the likelihood of closing it for the month of January but I don't think they realize that January is probably going to be the most "normal" month of 2000 and that things will deteriorate from then on, getting worse each month.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), October 06, 1999.

The GAO has a recent report on the Y2K readiness of the 25 largest school districts. A chart on which schools are designated as shelters is included.

www.gao.gov/y2kr.htm

Our district is claiming compliance in a mission critical areas. Interestingly, they didn't classify "embedded systems" as mission critical.

Who needs light and heat in January? :-)

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), October 06, 1999.


Schools and other buildings designated as shelters will onlt work IF the Red Cross can supply them or they take steps to have some stock on hand. In "localized" areas where events hit hard they may just be empty.

Second thought on schools- doubt many parents will bother and you'll have a whole bunch of bored kids- wonder what they'll do for fun when life is up side down? Think Clockwork Orange.

Larry Burkett was on Focus on the Family last week and this past Monday- his opinion schools at all levels are the least prepared.

EC

-- EC (JHnck1776@aol.com), October 06, 1999.


Arewyn - you say "I have stashed some home-schooling guides and workbooks (that sound you hear is the residual echoes of my kid groaning)"

Since I assume your child is currently in public school, why not just arrange with the teacher/s to have textbooks sent home at the Christmas/winter break. Perhaps arrange a conference sometime in Dec. to find out - if you don't already know - how your child is doing in the various subjects, and where they are in the textbooks, and what is coming up next. I homeschooled for a while in a cooperative arrangement with the school district, using the standard textbooks, and one surprise - even with a special needs child - is how LITTLE time it takes to cover the standard material when you are working one on one. For your kids it will be the educational equivalent of your canned goods in the garage. The few hours they spend reading their textbooks (might as well, the TV and video games don't work) will make the return to the classroom (assuming it doesn't go infomagic) a breeze. They will be way ahead of their classmates and will be able to skate for a while. Other than standard textbooks though... in case things DON'T get back to "normal" any time soon, you might want to consider what education they REALLY need. Survival skills, gardening, archery, ... all of which are likely to be non-groan producing as they are much more interesting than math word problems.

Good luck... and have plenty of kerosene for those Aladdin lamps for the kiddies to work by.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), October 06, 1999.


Arewyn,

I 'unschooled' my kids last year for precisely this reason. They were both in montessori, and weren't happy (the local montessori scene is crumbling) and the only public school then available was terrible, so the time was ripe for an experiment.

I tried to keep in mind the best of montessori philosophy: that children learn because they want to keep up, so there's no need to prod; only support them like crazy in their educational enthusiasms, and don't sweat it if their choices seem eccentric. They're assembling pieces of a larger picture. Trust them to show you a way of going. My son got considerably less toxic about math after he'd had a 4-month break from the grind. And he learned to cook.

My kids, then 4 and 8, and I had a great year together, and they're now happy in a new public school. I'd do it again easily. If y2k hits hard, my two won't be in the least phased by coming home to learn.

Tell your kid homeschooling's a blast, and if he'd like to s/he can correspond w/ mine about the experience.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 06, 1999.



i do not think this is practical advice. if you are homeschooling already--great, but i don't think it is the kind of thing you can quickly switch into and then switch back into the public schools a few months later. i am not planning homeschooling for y2k alone. besides what does it buy you when the schools start back up if you plan on keeping your kids in public school? i will find plenty to keep my kids occupied. plus, they will then go to school extra months to make up just like the rest of their friends.

-- tt (cuddluppy@yahoo.com), October 06, 1999.

actually, homeschoolers, this is OT but i wish i knew what to do about a kid that is a friend of my son's. i invited him to go to James Dobson's Life on the Edge for teens and their parents. he is a good kid, churched, homeschooled and from what i see he desperately wants to and needs to go to public school (he is 14). his family seems to have a dysfunctional background, the husband and wife seem to have some problems, the parents don't trust him and are constantly punishing him by keeping him away from his friends and out of youth group (which is probably the little bit of socializing he is allowed to do) and they won't let him go to public school because they are afraid he will get into drugs and mischief. When things are that bad at home, I think a kid ought to get out of the house--I can think of nothing more depressing for a kid to be stuck home with parents that are this dysfunctional and with no social outlet (which is so important to teens). What do you recommend to help him? I can't talk to his parents or they would be offended and not let him play with my son.

-- tt (cuddluppy@yahoo.com), October 06, 1999.

cuddluppy,

I think you've got some weird ideas about homeschooling--be careful about extrapolating solely from your one bad (secondhand) experience of it.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 06, 1999.


Arewyn,

I attended a y2k community meeting a few months back and the Asst. Superintendant was there and he told us that all our district schools will be used for shelters if need be. Also on my son's school calendar Jan. 3rd is written as an "Inservice/Y2K" day. I don't know for sure the reasoning they have behind the day, maybe to get any glitches fixed, or maybe to have an x-tra day to get the word out that they are full of people that need heat. On one of the posts above someone mentioned the need for supplies from the Red Cross. This totally true. The buildings won't be any good except for heat. At our community meeting, a police chief asked the question of how they were going to get food to feed all the people in the shelters. No one had a definite answer for him and the Red Cross rep. was there. Some may think they could use the cafeteria food, but I supervise many of the private school cafeterias in our area and I know, although they are smaller than the public ones, there is only enough food there for maybe a week. I just hope to hell all this stuff doesn't happen.

-- shari (shari_h72@hotmail.com), October 06, 1999.


tt-

It all depends on the local public schools. I went to public schools, but that was a LOT of years ago... Right now, I wouldn't send my grandchildren to a public school...I'd scrimp and save and send them to private school or homeschool. But that is here...there are a few exceptions in the US...

There are a LOT of drug problems, but public schools are probably worse.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 07, 1999.



From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Here's an earlier thread on homeschooling, or as I prefer to think of what we do, unschooling.

There may be a time when schools have been restarted, but for whatever reason, you choose to not send your child. In our case, it would be because we disbelieve that schools are a good place for most children. Others may need their children at home for some reason, such as to farm or babysit. There may also be some concerns about whether their children would be safe at school (as if they're safe there today). Even today kids are sometimes killed for their tennies. How valuable might those Nikes become if the local Foot Locker tanks? Would you expect your kids to carry a full lunchbox?

Depending on your state's attitude toward homeschooling, if you're planning to keep your kids out of school next year, you might consider taking them out now, so that you might stand some chance of getting them off the school rolls. If the schools begin desparately seeking Average Daily Attendence [ADA] money, or whatever it is called in your state, it might be better if your family wasn't on their list of truants. Check with your state's homeschooling association(s) for advice in such matters (and not with the state's education department).

Because of unrealistic public fears, children who are not in school during Y2K may be subject to some harsh treatment by authorities and strangers, to the point of being endangered. One preparation which may help your child to avoid being hauled off would be a personal ID card, which could serve as proof of his homeschooling status.

Some state and local homeschooling organizations will generate such an ID card for you, or you can probably easily make one yourself, if you're computer literate enough to be reading this thread. The kind of photograph that you can take in one of those vending machines produces a more realistic ID photo than does using a professionally produced color studio portrait. If you can't find one of those, try a passport photo, which can be taken rather inexpensively at most camera shops, film developing services, photographers or at Triple-A (American Automobile Association).

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 07, 1999.


Thanks for the thoughts. We have a meeting set up with the teachers for the middle of next month, at about the 10 week mark, to go over the kid's progress, etc. Good idea about making sure the textbooks come home on the last day before holiday break.

Our kid is bright, but has never been academically (sp?) inclined. She's the one who's busy inventing new recipes or making Barbie clothes out of balloons (hard to describe, but tres chic!) or building a new house for them out of straws and paperclips. I've not gone more toward homeschooling because I think she really needs the social interaction (Dad & I are homebodies...). She likes the little school she goes to, just not the work. If the school itself weren't small and safe (as intelligently operated as state law and programs with allow), she'd be in private school.

I do believe that it's wise to broaden the education of our kids. i.e., I've taught mine how to use the woodstove, and we're learning together how to cook on it. She knows how to use an axe, and this past summer learned how to capture fish in the pond. The winter will be a time of learning other homely arts like knitting and candle making.

Thank goodness we all like to read, too. We've nabbed a LOT of great books at local library sales, mostly at 10 - 25 cents a piece!

-- Arewyn (isitthatlate@lready.com), October 07, 1999.


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