Schools closed in the state of Georgia.

“It’s again trying to be transparent, forthcoming about information and asking people to relax and to understand that while we are taking this action to conserve fuel, it is best handled in the spirit of calmness and rationality,” Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.

And with that statement the Governor closed schools in the state of Georgia for the coming Monday and Tuesday. This action, done in haste, will create thousands of parents to be driving their children around the town to malls and other entertainment establishments to keep the children who are out of school entertained.

And on that note, Georgia is far from the top rated state when it comes to education in the country, the closing of the schools for two days, does not help the cause. Four school systems — Floyd County, Haralson County, Rome city and Thomasville city — decided to remain open. These seem to be a places that have their head on right.

Many schoolchildren, predictably, were delighted to get “snow days” in September.

Jeroson Williams, 12, heard about his good fortune along with a bus load of other students heading home Friday from Sandtown Middle School in south Fulton County.

“Our bus driver must have been listening to the bus radio,” the eighth-grader said. “She slowed the bus down, started listening to it. ‘Everybody!’ she started screaming. ‘Four-day weekend!’ “

The students on the bus exploded in celebration. “It was like a parade,” Jeroson said. “Everybody was like, ‘Yeah!’ “

His mother, Karon, was less enthusiastic. Jeroson told her the news as soon as he came in the door. “I was lying there, thinking, how will that help?” she said.

The state’s public colleges and universities planned to operate on a normal schedule, said John Millsaps, a spokesman for the University System of Georgia. But the institutions were encouraged to limit travel in accordance with the governor’s request to conserve fuel.

So will the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech not have their football teams take their charter flights? I bet the fuel used by these two teams will rival the usage for the a good part of the states school buses.

It seems like the politicians seem to be always one step off reacting to these situations. By trying to make this a newsworthy event, and catch the Friday news cycle, the governor has now created a situation that will make reasonable action at a later date much harder to implement.

UPDATE: Other States school districts are feeling the impact of Hurricane Rita and making preparations for this coming week. Kentucky school districts are now making changes to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Rita by cutting their school week to four days.

Across Kentucky, school districts are cutting field trips, redrawing bus routes or curtailing athletic events to cope with rising fuel costs. But no one’s making quite as dramatic a change as Jackson County.

Starting the week of Oct. 17, students will get every Friday off. Teachers will work half a day.

With the move, approved by the school board Sept. 5, Jackson becomes the fourth school district in the state to implement a four-day week, and the first to do so primarily for financial reasons.