Snow days, an unexpected day off in the middle of winter when weather does not allow safe travel to school, have been around for years in many snowy places. With new technology, is there a chance that snow days could be replaced with online school?
Since schools had to temporarily shift to online learning during the pandemic, some schools have reduced the number of snow days with online days. Sharonica Hardin-Bartley, a superintendent in University City Missouri, commented in an article from The Hill that her school allows five days off in the schedule for unsafe driving conditions, however, if there are more than five days, students will have to go into online school rather than getting a snow day.
Many parents and teachers have positive memories of being able to miss a day of school as a kid because of snow. They remember going sledding, having snowball fights, and hanging out with friends. Hardin-Bartley commented again on snow days, saying “I think that our parents definitely like the traditional snow day” Some parents want their kids to be able to have the same memories. Although, for some parents it’s a tough call to decide what they want, while some want to let their kids experience a traditional snow day, others would rather not have school go even later into the summer. “[Parents] would much rather have [an online] day versus having school go into June,” Hardin-Bartley said, so the decision from a parent standpoint could be split.
At Dana Hall, Head of School Katherine Bradley explained the main purpose of snow days is to avoid unsafe driving conditions, and if getting to school is unsafe, she will call for a snow day. Ms. Bradley predicts snow days will continue at Dana Hall, for multiple reasons. Firstly, snow days are decreasing due to less snowfall in recent years, and secondly, it takes lots of planning to get the whole school back on Zoom, even just for a day.
Additionally, Ms. Bradley commented on an online day we had a few years ago, and said “we did online snow days immediately following a pandemic when being in school was so important to keep going because there had been so much learning loss.” On the topic of zoom, Ms. Bradley also commented “I don’t foresee in the near future that we would change our model from cancelling school altogether to moving to an online model, but I would never say never.” So for the foreseeable future, Dana Hall snow days are likely to be around when dangerous weather occurs for a while.