The impact of cold, rainy weather on students, teachers
By Carlos P. with additional reporting by Xiomara A.
Due to the high cold temperatures and heavy rainy days, some students and teachers have shared their experiences dealing with this atypical Los Angeles weather.
“The weather lately, has been horrible, specially with the rain,” said senior Jeremy L.Z. “It cut my electricity for the entire weekend.” He explained that he had to submit an assignment and couldn’t turn it in on time. “Luckily, my teacher gave me an extension to submit it,” he said.
Junior Monse G. said that she takes the bus to school and that the rain impacts her commute. “I don’t want to go outside,” she said. “I have to walk at least 2 blocks to walk to the bus stop. It makes it difficult for me.”
Ms. Suarez says “I drive to the Valley to visit my parents on the weekends and take care of them, and one of the freeways was flooded on Friday. It was just scary.”
Ms. Suarez would rather not drive when it’s pouring rain. “I don’t like the way people drive when its raining and I feel like it’s really unsafe, but I also need to teach and keep my job.”
Climate Change
Climate change is the topic of many debates, and for some, this recent weather is connected to it.
“It’s definitely real, with the winter weather and rain being hard, I think it’s real here in California,” said Jeremy.
On the other hand, Ms. Suarez who teaches science shares her point of view about this worldwide problem.
“Well, I think that climate change is a result of a lot of poor decisions by corporations that only care about making a lot of money over taking care of the earth,” she explained. She continued saying that climate change is connected to colonization, contrasting the way Indigenous people took care of the earth versus colonizers.
“I think we’re seeing just the beginning of things, but it’s still not too late.”
Suspend School?
Should school be suspended when the weather is bad?
“I don’t know what to think about it because, I understand, if I had to walk in the rain, I wouldn’t be happy either,” said Ms. Suarez. “But at the same time, it’s like the alternative is doing school on Zoom, and like we already know how that goes.”
She said it’s a tough decision and explained that some schools get snow days while others don’t. “It’s difficult to say, but I do care about students’ safety above all, so I think that if the weather is affecting their safety, then we should suspend school.”
