Students angered by way snow days were handled

House Editorial

While the snow provided students, faculty and staff with extra time off this week because of class cancellations, it also caused headaches for some students.

JMU put a notice on its Web site Sunday night that classes before noon would be canceled Monday. While such a notice is appreciated, it is not very realistic.

With the amount of snowfall that Harrisonburg had received by the time the first notification was published, JMU could not have had classes Monday. Instead of making the decision to cancel classes all together early in the morning, JMU should have canceled all classes with the first post.

Other area school systems, businesses and organizations have no problem canceling their events early. That allows local television stations to list the closings and cancellations on their scrolling updates on the bottom of the screen.

Sure, students can wake up the next morning and check for another update. But, why prolong the obvious?

Other students were left in the cold — literally — when JMU decided to have classes after 10 a.m. Tuesday. Because many students' cars were snowed in, some opted to take the bus. However, that caused some people problems.

The Harrisonburg Department of Public Transportation began operating at 10:30 a.m. in order to get students to class at 11 a.m. For some students, this became an issue. Some buses only stop at certain places at one time during an hour. If the bus is scheduled to pick up riders at one stop at 10:15 a.m. and doesn't go back to that spot until 11:15 a.m., how is a student supposed to catch that bus in time for class if the buses don't start running until 10:30 a.m. to begin with?

JMU, as well as the HDPT, should have thought of such circumstances and situations before they made the decision.

Furthermore, snow accumulation becomes an issue for parking on campus. JMU already has a lack of parking. But, when it snows, that creates a drastic limitation in the number of available of parking spaces.

The top floor of the parking deck was not available to commuters because the snow could not be plowed. In other parking areas, the snow-covered lots caused some motorists to park their automobiles more spaced out, since parking space boundaries are sometimes not visible. With cars spread out, that creates less parking spaces. Also, mounds of plowed snow might take up spaces that normally would be available.

Plows also caused trouble to some student's near the Office of International Programs. Their cars were blocked in by a mound of snow moved in front from the lot and in front of their driveway.

The JMU administration cannot be blamed for the plows and where the snow ends up. However, it should take these things into consideration when deciding on cancellations, along with bus routes and other transportation issues. JMU also should stop trying to make school cancellations secretive, as if it were an undercover department of the government.