Student’s Call For Snow Day Leaves Administration Out In The Cold

A student in Virginia used his cell phone during lunch to complain to the chief operating officer of his county [Dean Tistadt] about the 3 inches of snow outside. The student, Devraj Kori, could not find Tisdadt in his office and decided to call his publicly listed home number.

He got his wife instead, who called back and left this message.

“How dare you call us at home! If you have a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody’s house and complain about it,” Candy Tistadt’s minute-long message began. At one point, she uttered the phrase “snotty-nosed little brats,” and near the end, she said, “Get over it, kid, and go to school!”

Using the beauty of the Internet, Kori then posted this message on You Tube (since been removed – I checked) and to all of his fellow students…who promptly began prank calling the home and office. It didn’t stop there.

The Tistadts received dozens more calls that day and night, Dean Tistadt said. Most were hang-ups, but at one point, they were coming every five minutes — one at 4 a.m., he said. At the same time, his wife’s response was spreading through cyberspace.

The story was also picked up by a local television station. The school and county administration have both talked with Kori, who has not been disciplined. It has raised an interesting freedom of speech debate on how accessible public officials are or should be.

Either way, it just goes to show that trying to get out of school for 3 inches of snow deserves a battle with your school system. Too bad this type of thing would only float around the Washington DC area, where school have been closed on account of heavy rain.

[photo by: prairiedog]