Editor’s Note: In a timely convergence of New Year’s Resolutions, the Mineral Daily News-Tribune welcomes Mineral County Schools Superintendent Skip Hackworth back to the pages of the daily newspaper for a regular series of commentaries called “The Clipboard.” We’re sure our readers will find the feature both educational and lively, just like the schools Mr. Hackworth leads.
 Look for future installments of the superintendent’s columns on the Op-Ed page.
It’s that time again that many of us make New Year’s Resolutions.  This year I am in that group and I do intend on keeping mine by sharing them with you.  I have one personal goal, to lose 50 pounds, and one professional goal, to resume my column in the local newspaper. 
My personal goal is a matter of my personal health.  I have lost and regained these same 50 pounds over the past couple of years.  This morning I finally asked my wife to help me get the process started—I know she will because I do think she likes me.  It’s time to eat less and exercise more.  The Healthy Mineral County Coalition has set its goal for all of us----it’s like preparing ourselves for a long race---Ready, Set, Get Healthy.  I hope that we, as Mineral Countians, can and will subscribe to a healthier lifestyle.
My professional goal is a matter of fulfilling a request of one of our elder statesmen.  Dallas Adams has asked that I resume this column which provides a continuing up-date of the day-to-day happenings of this fine school system.  Thanks, Dallas, for insisting that I get it in gear and write this column on a regular basis. 
Today, I offer a few thoughts about “snow days” and how they affect a school system.  As a student, it was a day to build a snowman, have a snowball fight, or go play a pinball machine and eat hot dogs all day at a local hangout.
When I was a teacher, a snow day was a gift that was to be celebrated and used wisely--a day to

(See CLIPBOARD P. 13)
 appreciate the beauty of the snow, eat homemade soup, watch some good TV, and, of course, catch up on grading papers. 
In those days, I longed for the opportunity to make decisions on whether or not should school be cancelled.  In this space I want to apologize to every person I have ever complained about, who had this unenviable task.  As I have since learned, there is a dark side to having a snow day.
For our bus operators, it means making sure that they have their chains ready to install—a messy, often bone-chilling exercise.  It means going to your bus earlier than usual, to give it time to warm up—even if it is only 10-15 degrees outside.  Our mechanics are also out there on the battle front helping get busses started or driving our back roads plowing our bus turn-arounds.
For our cooks, it means the problem of how to deal with food put in refrigerators to thaw for that day’s meal, or how to deal with deliveries that are often waiting at the door when you unlock at 6:00 a.m.  And if the days off happen to extend, it means dealing with the procedures for disposing of spoiled food, which over the years has become something akin to dealing with hazardous waste.
For custodians, it means remembering that you only have a little salt left over from the last snow day, or that you haven’t been able to find the snow shovels or trying to decide if it’s worth trying to start the snow blower that you haven’t started in a very long time.  Is it worth it to wear yourself out trying to get it started or just hunker down and get started on shoveling off the walks. 
For maintenance workers, a snow day could be an opportunity to work on a project in a school without the daily call about heat or leaks that haven’t happened before.  But, this can’t happen until they plow and treat the school parking lots.  They, along with the custodians, must get this done early, just in case it’s only a two-hour delay.
An administrative headache, one our coaches share, is what to do about basketball or wrestling practice, or a scheduled game.  While road conditions where the other teams is driving from will also affect the decision, coaches and administrators also have to get the word out to those involved so no one risks life and limb getting to school to go on a bus trip that isn’t happening.  It never fails, though, that someone gets angry because they didn’t hear about the cancellation soon enough.
For those of us in the central office, our work on a snow day isn’t much different than any other day, except for how we dress and the possibility of sharing a big pot of soup.  It means having to figure out how to schedule the day back, canceling and rescheduling a few appointments, or having a meeting with folks in the office that had been scheduled for later in the week.
For those of us charged with deciding on whether or not to have school, a snow event means early morning calls, incessantly checking the weather conditions all around the county, talking with transportation directors and/or superintendents in neighboring counties, and finally making a decision that will be wrong to someone no matter what you do.  I do know that John Haines and I have been cussed and blessed for the same snow event by different people. 
I also know that we are starting out this year of 2010 in the midst of a series of snow events and, therefore, I see many more difficult decisions on the horizon.