It's a decision that sparks joy for some, and chaos for others: The snow day Parents across the country have been forced to scramble in recent weeks as wintry conditions prompted schools to shut Some regions have recorded an unusually high number of closures The disruption unleashes a pre-dawn scramble in many households, with some parents opting to work from home While others drop kids at a babysitter's or trudge into the office with charges in tow Student safety is consistently cited as the driving force behind snow days But the wide variety of policies in different parts of the country demonstrate how subjective those decisions can be Schools in the Prairie provinces virtually never close for bad weather, while schools on Canada's East Coast regularly shut down during snow storms Some school boards in the Maritimes consistently report double-digit school closures over a winter While some schools in the Prairies have not had a snow day in decades