The forecast before I went to bed last night said there was possibility that by morning there could be a quarter inch ice accumulation in the northern parts of our county, and according to the map, that meant mostly the counties north and west of us. My husband travels to the northern most parts of this county to get to work, and into the county north of ours, so I left him a note before I went to bed (he had retired earlier) telling him of the latest weather forecast knowing that he might encounter ice at 5 a.m. on his way to work this morning.
He called me at about 6 this morning and told me he had gotten to work just fine, that all he saw was rain.
Based on that information, I got ready for school and went in at 7:15 a.m. I saw a couple teachers in the hallway who also had gotten there early. Actually, many of us get there between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. to begin our morning preparations.
I was so glad it was Friday, and happy to be getting some planning time in. I had turned on the laminator in the workroom as soon as I arrived so it would be hot by the time I came back to use it. After I put my bags and things away, and exchanged thoughts with another EC teacher, I walked back to the workroom and laminated a set of main idea sentence starters I had made for my fifth grade writing class, cut them out, and placed them beside the 5th grade classroom door. Then, I pulled a set of leveled readers for my fourth graders for next week's focus on theme, and copied the assessment and an activity to help them understand theme. Finally, I reorganized a book shelf to make room for the additional texts and teacher manuals I would need to use with the 4th grade math and reading classes I'll be starting on Monday. Wow, I thought. I got all this done in just.... and I looked up at the clock because surely any minute now the kids would be running down the hall excited to be in their classrooms on a cold dreary Friday.
The clock showed 8:30... was it broke? Am I reading it wrong? Maybe it's 7:30... but no it couldn't be. I couldn't have been working for only 15 minutes. I checked my watch, and it also showed 8:30.
Then it occurred to me... naw, it couldn't have been a delay... surely not. There was nothing but rain out there... so I sought out another teacher and asked her, "Was there a delay today?"
"Yes, two hours," she replied. She lives in my neighborhood.
"No one called to tell me." We have a phone tree and we are supposed to call the teacher's name below ours on the list to make sure everyone gets whatever message is being sent around.
"Yeah, no one called me either, but I saw it on the tv and the internet." she said.
"Well, my husband had told me there was only rain on the roads, so I didn't even think to look at the tv to see if the schools were on a delay," I defended my ignorance on the matter.
So, this morning I was given a gift of time which I sorely needed to plan for next week's classes, particularly in light of the fact that I will be adding three classes I had not been teaching before. Winters have a way of giving us what we need when we need it.
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