The "snow day" situation has gotten weird over the years.
I grew up here in Fairfax County and we certainly had snow days from school, though they didn't seem as quick to close as they do now. I remember a lot more early closings and late openings than they have nowadays. I kind of suspect there are two factors that have changed: (1) Parents are more litigious these days and so the schools err on the side of closing lest a school bus founder in the snow and the parents all start suing; (2) A lot more people live in the parts of Fairfax County that have the twisty back roads under a canopy of trees than did 30 years ago. I'm thinking of areas like Clifton, Great Falls, etc. Clifton used to be way the heck out in the sticks and, aside from the town itself, there wasn't much out that way. Now there are a lot of neighborhoods out there but you access them via the old roads like Fairfax Station Road or Chapel Road. So the school buses have to negotiate those roads that are likely to be icier than the main roads closer in.
But it's not the schools' response to storms that puzzles me. Hey, I understand why a school system would apply the principle of erring on the side of being overly cautious, and I can't blame them. Losing one day of lessons isn't the end of the world, especially given that the kids won't behave on a snowy day anyway such that it tends to turn into a wasted day.
What puzzles me is employers' reactions. I do not EVER remember adults expecting "snow days" when I was a kid. My father worked for the government downtown and I don't ever remember him staying home because his office was closed for snow—the only time I remember him staying home on a snowy day was when the schools were closed anyway for a teacher workday and, since my mother was a teacher, he stayed home with us while she went to work. Yesterday I found myself wondering if the people who take the idea of a "snow day" from work as a given are all people around my age or younger (I will hit 40 this spring) who grew up getting "snow days" from school and so they've just come to expect that as a routine thing.
