It’s 9:00 PM on Monday, January 5, and I am laying in my bed, watching “Friends” on Netflix and procrastinating on all things “school” as I have not yet accepted that winter break has ended. I look at my phone and see that I have 150 unread messages, (the benefits of being in a group message with four other procrastinators), and the main topic of the conversation is that we might have a 2 hour delay tomorrow despite the predictions of only a “dusting”.

I wake up, no delay. Am I frustrated? Yes.

Is a “dusting” of snow all I find when I leave my house? No. Most definitely no.

Mother Nature apparently sympathized with the students feelings of withdrawal from winter break, and ended up gracing the Falls Church City area with 3-4 inches of snow, and quite the morning commute.

My father, who grew up across upstate New York and Connecticut, insisted on driving me to school, which I was so angry about at the time, and even he began to skid on the ice and roads that were most definitely not plowed.

If you have a twitter account or have interacted with any fellow mustangs, you have seen the tweets of anger and frustrations that were generated on that fateful day:

So, why was there no delay? In past years it seemed like as soon as the temperature dropped below 32 degrees and there was slight speculation about possible accumulation, we had at least a two hour delay. (Or maybe now a one hour delay, since apparently those are a thing now.)

In a fit of anger, I ended up tweeting the superintendent of the Falls Church City school system, and received this response:

Okay, I understand that, and I myself would never be capable of making that decision, but why is it that the weather at 5:00 a.m. is believed to be completely indicative of what the weather will be at 7:45 when students are driving to school? The fact remains that by the time, or even well before, students were leaving for school many of the roads were left unplowed and many of the plowed roads were filled with drivers who believed that if you drive the speed you would be going if you were sliding across black ice, you avoid the problem altogether.

No Mason students were injured, unlike the rumored 18 Fairfax County students who ended up in the hospital, but as I drove, several different cars were sitting on the side of the road, and reports of buses skidding into other vehicles.

I’m writing this not to harp and complain on an event that occurred in the past, but because I’m honestly so surprised and worried that it even happened. If a student had ended up getting hurt on their way to school, this would not be an issue that could be solved with a simple apology email.

I would ask that the school system be a tad more transparent with how these decisions are made and who is making them, rather than just telling the students that they have been made. I would also ask that while this may cause a little bit of trouble in terms of miscommunication, that the school system consider changing a call if it has been proved that the call was, in fact, wrong.

Why is it that the weather is not monitored after the original 5 AM call? Shouldn’t the weather continue to be monitored throughout the day?

Now, I completely understand that many of the news sources predicted the weather incorrectly, and that monitoring the safety of an entire school system of students is probably an impossible task, and I am not in any way trying to make the superintendent/school board’s jobs seem more simple than they are.

That being said, even though newscasters like the Capital Weather Gang underestimated the amount of snow we would be getting, they were very clear in their warnings that the accumulated snow would affect commutes into work. It’s just a little strange that the effect of the snow, even as little as the predicted 1-2 inches, would have on the roads did not seem to be taken into account in making this decision.

Again, I am in no way writing this just to bash on our school board/superintendent, I respect them all very much. I just think that I am not the only one who believes that a lot of the time the student body is kept in the dark about how these sorts of decisions are made, or in this case, kept in the snow.