How parents adjusted after they heard school was canceled

After vandals slashed the tires of school buses in Barrington, thousands of students and their parents had to readjust for the unexpected day off.

Tamara Tabel, a mother of two boys at Roslyn Road School, works from home and was actually sick on Tuesday.

She had to drag her sons -- ages 8 and 10 -- to her doctor's appointment in Glenview but made it worth their while with a trip to McDonald's for lunch.

Several Barrington Area Unit District 220 parents interviewed all said they agreed with the district's decision to cancel classes on Tuesday. They also said they received the word of the cancellation in a timely manner.

"I do appreciate the school's need to be cautious," said mom Sue Baumgartner, "so I didn't really have an issue with their decision to cancel school."

She works at Motorola in Schaumburg and asked to work from home for the day to stay with her two sons.

Rhonda Lombardi's two kids got to sleep in all morning.

She has an 11-year old at the middle school's Prairie Campus and a 14-year old at Barrington High School. After they got up, she took her daughter out to do some holiday shopping.

Still, the fact that vandals pierced tires of the bus got to her.

"I think it's terrible, to be quite honest," said Lombardi. "I don't know why anyone would want to do that."

Barrington Park District Executive Director Terry Jennings said that since the district's main facility at Langendorf Park does not have space for an open gym, there wasn't an influx of students there Tuesday.

But she said the district staff did notice more activity at the town's skate park.