Snow Job: D.C.-Area Schools Closed Again After Minor Storm

Schools teach children, even when the schools aren’t in session. Perhaps especially when the schools aren’t in session.

On Tuesday, a fairly typical winter storm swept through the Washington area. A few inches of snow greeted residents when they arose, and the federal government shut down. So did the area’s schools.

Fair enough; many feds can work from home, and by keeping buses off the streets, local governments allowed road crews to get to work. By noon Tuesday, all roads were clear, driveways were shoveled, and most people were back to business as usual.

But not Fairfax County’s massive school system.

Late Tuesday evening, it sent notice that schools would be closed again on Wednesday. That’s more than 24 hours after the final snowflake drifted down — most of a day after plows and salt crews had finished their work.

The rationale for shutting schools again seems to be: It’s cold, and there’s snow on the ground. A more enlightened generation would have observed such conditions and called them “February.” But to our modern, highly credentialed expert educators, it’s reason to keep the children home.

And here’s the lesson children are learning: “Be afraid of the weather. Be very afraid.”

This is, to say the least, an interesting message. After all, most liberals warn endlessly about the dangers of global warming. “Global warming is the greatest threat to your generation of anything at all, across the board,” Vice President Joe Biden told college students just last week.

Right. Not a lousy economy. Not crippling college loan debt. Not a looming entitlement system collapse. Global warming.

But if the left — and educators are very much creatures of the left — is really concerned about global warming, it ought to be teaching children that they’ll need to deal with bad weather. Whether or not the climate is going to change, whether or not sea levels are going to rise, the upcoming generation will need to be ready to take action. Instead, we’re teaching it to seek shelter.

In any event, another brief storm may deliver a few more inches of snow to the D.C. region later this week. Better get ready for more time off from school. And more lessons about fearing, rather than facing, the weather.