I miss snow days. It used to be that I could rely on a handful of days in the winter when the weather would cover for me, canceling school and giving me a day of rest during one of the busiest times of the year. When I was younger, I would wake up late, eat my Cheerios, and stomp out the door to roll around in the snow for hours. As I got older, I was more reluctant to spend all day outside and more appreciative of the opportunity to sleep and catch up on homework.
And then telecommunications took that all away from me.
The COVID-19 pandemic kept kids at home for school, negating the need for a physical classroom. With that discovery, schools everywhere realized they could apply the same system to days canceled for inclement weather. And thus, childhood joy everywhere was extinguished.
Unfortunately for all parties, the new “Remote Learning Days” accomplished very little. The 20-minute class schedule combined the “no learning” aspect of snow days with the “waking up early” aspect of in-school learning. We were suffering from the downsides of both in-person and at-home learning, with no solution to the problem.
It always seemed to me that this new kind of schooling was more for show than for anything else. After all, how were we supposed to cover any content in 20 minutes? We couldn’t. Taking attendance took long enough with the struggles both teachers and students faced using Teams.
In fact, many teachers simply dismissed my classes after the first five minutes. Nevertheless, we were required to show up. Even if no grades were entered, our attendance counted. So, it was mandated that everyone, all students and all teachers, were required to wake up and get ready for school to accomplish nothing.
This year, we’ve switched to a better model. Instead of logging onto calls for 20 silent minutes, students do not have to actively participate at all. That means no more attendance, and no more attempts at some kind of activity. Now, there are optional assignments or readings posted to Teams or Canvas, which students are free (and encouraged) to engage with, but not required. In fact, teachers are not allowed to introduce any new content while students are at home, so the most they can offer is a review of past work. This is an obvious step up, but it begs the question: why not just make it a true snow day? If what is posted to Teams isn’t required, then surely it can’t be important to the curriculum. And if that’s the case, why bother at all? It feels like the district is grasping for ways to optimize our resources to eliminate snow days when it’s just not necessary.
We pad our school year with more days than we need for just this reason, so what’s wrong with just letting a day off be a day off? Besides, people need a break every once in a while. Snow days used to provide that relief. Now, we’ve managed to overcome the inefficiency of weather and childlike joy, and I don’t like it. For the sake of my third-grade self, bring back snow days. Please.
