[Regarding “BCS Revises Academic Calendar After Weather Cancellations,” March 12, Xpress:]
Buncombe County needs to seriously reexamine its policies and procedures for “winter weather.” I put that in quotation marks because every other Buncombe County Schools (BCS) parent I know knows that what qualifies as “winter weather” in this county does not need to be particularly wintry and doesn’t even need to actually manifest as actual weather for there to be cancellations or delays.
The option to make an easy decision to go to remote learning only makes this worse. Remote learning is, especially for younger students, largely laughable. It’s not enough work with enough engagement. It is essentially busy work that gets qualified as “instruction time.” I believe that the intent is for more than that.
I don’t think anyone’s motivations are nefarious. But I watched my kids be set back during COVID-19 for months and months. Every single day of remote instruction that happens under cold, sunny skies, another punch line of a “weather day,” absolutely infuriates me. The impact on kids who have been displaced by Helene or who experience food insecurity only makes this worse.
The merest appearance of the possibility of theoretical danger or liability does not justify Buncombe County’s kids missing hours of real instruction. It needs to radically change.
— Anthony Rodriguez
Swannanoa
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