A sweatshirt is NOT a coat

I am going to climb up on my soap box again. Today it is10 degrees out and snowing. Tomorrow will be -11 and snowing. I work at a low income school and many of these students come from Mexico. That is not an excuse for no coats. I asked  some sweat shirt wearing kids where their coats were and they point to their sweat shirt. That is NOT a coat.Many do not own coats, hats or gloves and are standing out in the 10 degree weather walking home. If the school is not cancelled tomorrow, but merely delayed the teachers at our school are going to be upset. We are a neigborhood school and most of our students walk to school so a two hour delay won't benefit them much. Especially when last time we had a two hour delay we had 30 kids sitting in the office who still walked to school at 7 am. They do not serve breakfast on a two hour delay so these kids sat hungry in the office while the office staff babysat them. Many of them had no coats and walked so the office felt bad about having to send them home.  Today a girl showed up in shorts. She walked to school too.  Come on parents SERIOUSLY! I know i have been guilty of sending my kids out without a coat when I thought it was 50degrees and it was more like 40, but not when it is 10 degrees. Today my children had on turtlenecks under the uniforms and sweatshirts AND coats not instead of. My kids hate socks, but today socks were mandatory as well. I saw many students at the school without socks on their frozen little feet.
Yes we have a coat closet for kids to help themselves to, but they were told that they have a coat so they don't bother looking in it. We also have a huge assortment of coats in the Lost and Found, but no one seems to claim their missing coats. I check that thing daily when I find my child's gloves, hats or coats have gone astray.
I am climbing off  the soapbox now.

Testing nightmares

I have the unfortunate pleasure of  testing 464 children for the state of Colorado (luckily not by myself). I have some amusing observations from today alone that leave me utterly exhausted. First of all, since when does "one" mean color in every bubble on the page. Then i had a student get up during the test and try to help his non English speaking buddy to do better.....seriously kid sit down!! One child thought his shoe was more important than the test and since he was given the opportunity to test...well we have to leave him be. Then what do you do with the test that little kindie what's his name who drew flying robots and monkeys all over his test....yes you guessed it, you get a giant eraser and get erasing. Then there are the not so know -it-alls who are done first and absolutely refuse to check their work eventhough you know that they got them all wrong. Well until the fun begins again on Tuesday I am going to rest and hopefully I will not repeat test items in my sleep.