"snow day" superstitions

[Lesa Dill]

I suspect it started in the sixties.  At that time people started
thinking in terms of contact hours.  It may have come directly from the
Kennedy push for physical fitness and the whole science and space race
thing.  Even though there were superintendents and boards before then, I
don't think anyone really was overly concerned with having the schools
set up on some standard imposed from the outside.  When my dad was a
superintendent in the fifties a little before I came along, each school
system decided on the specifics of the school year--or at least that is
the impression I got from things he told me.

Barbara Need wrote:

> At 07:07 -0800 03/3/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> Also, what's the earliest date fro "snow day" ?  This seems to me to
>> be from the ''80s - not that I ever took notes on it.
>
>
> 1980s? No, it is certainly earlier than that! I got snow days in
> Andover, MA in the 70s. Five were built into the school year, so if
> we didn't have any, we ended school a week earlier than planned.
>
> Barbara