In other news, the Titanic sank yesterday

Local school districts' already complicated job of deciding whether to call off classes because of this week's bad weather has been made more complicated, the Chronicle reports, because people have pulled a list of school closings from 1997 off the newspaper's website and sent it around as though it's current. And, amazingly enough, it seems people have read the old article — which clearly states it's from Jan. 14, 1997, and refers to a particularly nasty ice storm we had back then — and decided it applies to them today. All we can say about that is that these people probably should be in school ... learning to read, maybe?

The 1997 article was viewed at least 74,000 times Monday and 4,000 times Tuesday, editors of chron.com said. "The Chron.com story listing school closings from 1997 was not posted on the Chron.com Web site this week or sent out by the Chronicle, but was in the site's archives," Scott Clark, the website's vice president and editor, said. "You can sometimes reach links to older stories through a Web search. Apparently someone found the link and distributed it widely." Regina Curry, assistant superintendent of Spring ISD, said kids were passing the story around via MySpace; though it's not clear exactly how many students stayed home because of the 10-year-old report, some districts saw sharp attendance dropoffs yesterday despite the fact that there was no ice. Galena Park was one such district: Nearly 25 percent of its students stayed home Tuesday. "We don't know why at this point," district spokesman Craig Eichhorn said. "There was no ice, so we're looking at different reasons. It could have been the e-mail or the outstanding weather threat."

Sending around the old article wasn't the only way kids found to get themselves a day off: In Humble, classes were less than half full Tuesday because someone posting as school district spokeswoman Karen Collier sent out an e-mail to media outlets saying schools would be closed Tuesday and today, which could cost the district a lot in state funding. "The funding impact is anywhere between $600,000 and $1 million, not to mention the chaos caused in the lives of thousands of students and parents," the genuine Collier told the Chronicle. "We intend to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. If it turns out this was done by a minor, the parents may be held financially responsible."