The list of fail-safe methods to get your superintendent to cancel school for a snow day is pretty short. In fact, the only known method is to actually be the person who runs the school district and has final say on the matter.
But that doesn’t mean other ideas for canceling class aren’t welcome when there’s a threat of wintry precipitation in the air. We already know that 1) wearing your pajamas inside-out in what could be construed as the sleepier version of the rally cap, 2) flushing ice cubes down the toilet, 3) sleeping with a spoon under your pillow, and 4) opening the freezer and yelling “Snow Day!” don’t work—at least not on a consistent basis.
The latest unreliable strategy: pretending to be a school superintendent on Twitter and DMing a local TV station to declare that school has been canceled for the day. Kudos for the creativity and integration of social media here.
Also, kids? Don’t DM us pretending you are some school official cancelling school. Closings don’t work like that. & we’re not that dumb.
— WTVC NewsChannel 9 (@newschannelnine) January 19, 2016
That’s WTVC in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and no, the news station is not as gullible as some kids might suspect. The Twitter con artist wrote in a direct message, “This is [name] with the Hamilton County Department of Education, please inform students of no school tomorrow.”
Dan Lehr, the station’s web director, responded: “Ha ha—nice try. You obviously don’t know the password.”
“This DM was so obviously from a kid, there was never any doubt,” Lehr told New York Magazine. “Our entire newsroom thought it was hilarious.”
Unfortunately, the inspired snow day play was also ineffective. Until this happened about 75 minutes later.
Hamilton county schools closed tomorrow
— Latricia Thomas (@LatriciaTnc9) January 19, 2016
H/T New York Magazine | Photo via Tony Fischer/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
