As of the posting of this diary, none of the big city megalopolis school districts -- Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York City -- have taken the preemptive step of cancelling classes in advance of Hurricane Sandy.
I've seen a bunch of people trying to sound angry about this on social media, generally taking the angle that it's irresponsible of these school districts not to close in light of the historic nature of the approaching storm.
Somewhere between 20-30% of Pennsylvania students are on the free or reduced lunch program.
680,000 NYC public school students are on the program.
About 40,000 DC public school students are on the program.
For many students in these districts, the free or reduced school lunch they get every day is the only meal they have all day. When schools close, many of these kids do not eat.
Officials keep this in mind when they have to make the decision to cancel classes, so they want to wait until they know that they absolutely cannot avoid closing schools.
Please keep this in mind when thinking about school closures in this and future storms.
[/civil rant]