When schools close, start late, or close early...

[laurajetter]

How do so many parents make arrangements with their jobs to allow for this? My only child is only 17 months old so I haven't experienced this yet but I've often wondered about it.

I'm not talking about families that have a stay or work at home parent. And I know that some people have flexible jobs. But what about families where both parents work (or even just single working parents) and their jobs have fairly strict policies? Or people whose nature of their job doesn't allow them to just call in and say they will be coming in late since their kids schools are late, or they need to get off early because schools are closing.

Sometimes you don't know until the last second. What do you all do? I'm sure there are many people who can make some kind of arrangements, but we're talking the entire school... wouldn't there be SOME parents who find it extremely difficult to work around it? Especially if schools close 2 days in a row, for instance.

I'm lucky to be working at home, but who knows what my situation will be once DS is old enough to go to school; I just was curious how others make it work.

Laura

 

[Bob Slydell]

We've just had two days closed this week (Monday and yesterday). In our case, I took off Monday (as a vacation day) and our usual babysitter, who normally watches the boys in the afternoon, watched our oldest in the morning as well. We usually have a couple options as far as childcare goes, plus typically my wife or I can take a day off if necessary. Our youngest is in preschool and they rarely close, even when all the other schools are shut down.

 

[DISUNC]

On late opening days or unexpected early closing days...My neighbors who both work full time & MUST be at work by 9....drop their kids off at my house or at another neighbors house, where someone is home in the am.

 

[mommasita]

We are also lucky in that we run/operate our business, and we can stay home (one of us) when this happens.

We live in Montreal, AKA snow city, freezing temperatures. WE have closed 1 day this entire school year, and that was for Norwalk. My son is in grade 5, and to date we have had 1 snow day. The other ped days, the daycare service is open.

I think parents make friends with other parents who are home, and they help each other out. I have helped a few here and there, but not all the time, as I have 2 children, and DO work outside..

 

[MUFFYCAT]

When my girls were younger depending on who had a more important day at work my DH or I took turns staying home.
Which is why we both stayed at our flexible jobs.

Luckily for us in the 9 years that they were in grammer school we had only 1 or 2 delayed openings.
They'd rather perfer to close the schools.

 

[princesspiglet]

My daughter attends Kindercare. They have an after-school and before school program and a bus run to and from the elementary schools in our area. When I was dropping her off this morning, there were alot of kids in the "school-age" room since we had a 2 hour delay. I drop her off at the same time every day and if the school had a delay or was closed, she would just stay at Kindercare and do homework or play all day with an actual teacher there supervising or helping with whatever she would need. They have this program for up to age 12. That is one of the great things about a reputable, corporate run daycare/preschool program.

 

[daisyduck123]

I don't have problems about late openings, snow days, etc. because I am a teacher.
We all are home today on a snow day!

I would think though, that all parents would have to already have some kind of plan in place though...just think of the mornings that their kids wake up sick. That would be the same situation as waking up to an unexpected snow day. They've got to have a plan in place for that. (Except for the parents who just send their kids to school sick so that they can get to work ...but that's another thread entirely).

 

[SC Minnie]

Dh and I would trade off depending on who had what going on. When DD was about 5 or so he would take her in with him. The area he worked in had a conference area and she would sit there and color or watch a video.

We rarely have 'snow' days even though we did have one last week!

 

[VirtuallyMe]

Lets see= for middle school and high school students they will usually just leave them alone-

For elementary schools- many have day care programs but those do close for some holidays and for emergencies like weather...

For those if you don't have someone as a back up- family, friend, neighbor... then you kid sits at school with whoever is left in charge of being there until picked up if you can't leave your job. I've known people who have gotten fired because their kids school had a water main burst and she had to leave and go get them- my last job I was salaried- and although they wanted me to leave for lunch break they didn't want me to leave to go pick up kids and drop them at home- I started looking for a new job then.

Sometimes you have flexibility sometimes you don't- I will be the only RN in my new job when I'm on shift- so I won't have as much flexibility when I am working- but I have several neighbors who will help out- and my youngest son's new day care just so happens to be down the street from the day care and dd could easily go to them if needed especially since day care worker's kids/grandkids go to the elementary school too...

I also have a mom, dad, and grandmother- as well as sister and brother inlaw and a college age niece who I list as ok to pick up my kids- so should my regulars fall through I can get them

 

[Aidensmom]

We luckily don't get those unexpected days too often here in Florida. I don't really have any kind of backup plan, and luckily most of the time my job is pretty flexible if DS is sick or something (I can work from home). If he was sick on a day that I had to be in the office or onsite somewhere for something, I'd have to drive him an hour away to my MIL's house if she was available.

 

[mickeyboat]

We both have pretty flexible schedules when we need them, and we would be able to stay home for an early morning delay. Or I could take them to work with me for a little while if I absolutely had to go in.

If school gets out early or there is a snow day, the kids go to the home day care where they go after school, for vacations and summers.

If they are sick, one of us has flexibility to take a day off. We have only had one sick day with one kid so far this year. (knocks on wood)

Denae

 

[SueRS]

I have some flexiblity in my job (I can work at home sometimes). My DS goes to an afterschool program, so if they get out early the after care takes care of it. My in-laws are also retired and if they are in town are a great help.

Good luck to all parents, this is so hard sometimes. The one I have an issue with is the last minute class things that my children mention Wendesday or Thursday night and want me to attend on Friday at 11:00. Makes it hard to schedule at my work.

 

[carone0318]

I'm lucky, I just call and say I'm coming in a little late.

Usually it is not a problem.

 

[CEDmom]

I have a laptop since I work from home some days so I'm all set. I was wondering the same thing for many other parents who aren't as fortunate as me. Our district had a delayed opening again today. The 3rd time in 2 weeks. I know I've had a few neighbors stay here on late opening days because their parents had to go to work.

 

[NMAmy]

When dd was young, she went to a Latchkey program that was open even if the school was on delay.

When we lived in New Mexico, we had a lot of snow delays but not the whole day. I was very lucky in that I could just take her in to work with me and she'd sit in the conference room and watch videos and color. Sometimes she'd help the teachers (I worked at a college). One teacher would pay her 1 Jolly Rancher for each box of pencils she sharpened for him. She loved it.

 

[tink1978]

Sorry....I completely misread your question...

When school closes, I either take the day off (I have an extremely flexible work schedule) or I arrange for my parents, one of my brothers, a friend, or a babysitter to keep him.

 

[Sherri]

How do so many parents make arrangements with their jobs to allow for this? My only child is only 17 months old so I haven't experienced this yet but I've often wondered about it.

I'm not talking about families that have a stay or work at home parent. And I know that some people have flexible jobs. But what about families where both parents work (or even just single working parents) and their jobs have fairly strict policies? Or people whose nature of their job doesn't allow them to just call in and say they will be coming in late since their kids schools are late, or they need to get off early because schools are closing.

Sometimes you don't know until the last second. What do you all do? I'm sure there are many people who can make some kind of arrangements, but we're talking the entire school... wouldn't there be SOME parents who find it extremely difficult to work around it? Especially if schools close 2 days in a row, for instance.

I'm lucky to be working at home, but who knows what my situation will be once DS is old enough to go to school; I just was curious how others make it work.

Laura

I haven't experienced this myself, but I can tell you what my neighbor does. Her child goes to the local Y program for before and after school care, so when they get out early or have a delay she takes them there.

 

[Kimberle]

We have an excellent afters care program at the school. For delayed openings, it starts the regular time. For scheduled early dismissal, it starts earlier. They only close when school is dismissed early for weather. Luckly, its not to often.

 

[pospisil]

DH and I usually just work half days whenever DS is sick or something else unscheduled like that. I'll go to work from 7am - 11am, come home, and then DH works from noon until 4pm. We live about a half hour from where we work (our jobs are about 5 minutes apart),so it works out pretty well for us.

For things we know about ahead of time, like spring break, one of us takes time off and has a mini vacation with DS. I really enjoy this. We take about 2 weeks or so of family vacation time together each year, and then each of us has a week with just ourself and DS. We save the big trips for the family times, and the one-on-one times we go to local attractions, the zoo, the park, the museum, and maybe spend a night in San Antonio or Dallas. It's great! We each get time alone with DS, and he gets at least 4 weeks of vacation a year.

 

[aprilgail2]

I have someone that will watch my daughter for me when school is closed. Normally if we have a half day or delayed opening of more than an hour I don't bother to send her to school. Last "half" day had them home by 1130- they don't START until 9:20- I was not bothering to get her up and dressed and to the bus to have her turn around and come home 2 hours later. When I called the school to tell them she wouldn't be there due to childcare issues (easy to drop her off someplace on my way to work for the full day but not easy to have someone come and get her off the bus for 2 lousey hours of school) they told me 2/3's of the school wasn't there that day anyway.
For the times she has to come home early sick I either run out of work to pick her up, drop her someplace and go back or I call grams or a neighbor or friend to go get her.