Snow day for eastern Nebraska. Kids these days have it easy. Shoot I remember walking 3 miles up hill to school, both ways, on my hands so I wouldn't get my feet wet and in -30 degree F wind chills. :)
All kidding aside the reason they declared a snow day wasn't so much for the snow or even the cold. The fact is children in our school districted are unprepared to be out in it.
Here is a quote from the district superintendent on the reason they will call snow days more often then in the past. "These days it is also important to remember the changing demographics of our community. Currently about 50 percent of our students, preschool through fifth grade, live in poverty (qualify for free and reduced lunch)—45 percent of our total LPS student enrollment. That means we can no longer assume that children walking to school have warm mittens and adequate coats. Nor can we assume that if and when blizzard conditions arrive at the close of a school day, parents will be waiting outside school doors with a warm car. Yes, many students in Lincoln can bundle up, but many do not have the resources, the parental supervision or knowledge to prepare properly."
This is sad, the state of our world that is. If things are this bad where I live I cannot imagine what it is like on either coast where poverty and unemployment are much higher. We in Nebraska are supposed to have a good standard of living compared to much of the country. I don't want this to be a political post or a blame this person or that person or this party or that party. I guess I want people to understand how bad things have gotten for the innocent bystanders in this game of political and corporate corruption. This didn't happen the last two years or 10, it started much longer ago.
I hope and pray at some point we will see that passing debt on to the future, downsizing employees, corporate greed and political infighting are getting us no where and hurting those, the youth, who have no say. WE are all to blame and until we all start to make a change it isn't going to get better.
