Are snow days dead?

[Elizabeth86]

We are getting a bit of snow tonight. I see many public schools in the area are having virtual learning. Oh man, the snow day is dead I think. Poor ps kids. Snow days were the best.

[Ali in OR]

No snow days unless the power goes out.

[Murphy101]

What? No. Everyone knows the wifi connection sucks when it snows. It’s been known to be down all day on snow days. 😉

^I jest but I’d 100% disconnect my wifi if we woke with a foot of snow outside. Because that happens less than 3 days a year in Oklahoma. Damned if we are going to miss it for zoom.  Stuff like this makes me ever so grateful to home school and super sad for kids not so fortunate right now. I’ve long said the problem with distance learning/work is how much it intrudes literally into the family home. 🙁 

[theelfqueen]

In our area they said secondary students would no longer have a snow day, just go to virtual learning but not so for elementary (though I am  not sure how it works if they're already on virtual learning). 

[mommyoffive]

My kids never have snow days because they have been doing virtual school for 5 plus years.   

[KungFuPanda]

Pffft, sometimes my homeschooled kids got snow days so they could sled with the neighborhood kids. I’m guessing the older kids would rather go virtual on a day that was called for ice/low temps than give up any of their spring break. 

[Elizabeth86]

5 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Pffft, sometimes my homeschooled kids got snow days so they could sled with the neighborhood kids. I’m guessing the older kids would rather go virtual on a day that was called for ice/low temps than give up any of their spring break. 

I never would have. Snow days were the very best thing ever. I still watch the local news to see if schools close and I homeschool my children. 🤷 I literally feel thrilled for the school kids. Like I said, nothing beat a snow day to me growing up. 😆 Brings happiness to me even I'm a weirdo.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Elizabeth86

[KungFuPanda]

1 minute ago, Elizabeth86 said:

I never would have. Snow days were the very best thing ever. I still watch the local news to see if schools close and I homeschool my children. 🤷 I literally feel thrilled for the school kids. Like I said, nothing beat a snow day to me growing up. 😆 Brings happiness to me even I'm a weirdo.

Not all snow days are created equally. I’m in central Maryland. The perfect, fluffy-white day that’s great for sledding and snowmen is rare. Most snow days here are due to ice because we hover on the freeze-thaw line a lot. It’s just ugly and treacherous and often muddy by noon. Also, kids here only get a finite number before they start subtracting from spring and summer vacation time. Growing up, snow days were freebies, but here there’s a price. 

[kirstenhill]

I wonder if what might allow them to continue in many districts (after this year, of course) is that in a normal year not every kid has a device. In our district it took a huge effort when they went virtual in the spring and again this fall to check out devices to all students who don't have a dedicated device at home (many families have 1 computer and/or tablet but may not have 1 per kid).  I don't think they intend to assign individual devices in a "normal" year so it's hard to see how distance learning for a snow day could be required. 

[BeachGal]

I grew up in Montana and had not one school snow day. I do believe I was cheated. Hmmph. 

[Elizabeth86]

23 minutes ago, kirstenhill said:

I wonder if what might allow them to continue in many districts (after this year, of course) is that in a normal year not every kid has a device. In our district it took a huge effort when they went virtual in the spring and again this fall to check out devices to all students who don't have a dedicated device at home (many families have 1 computer and/or tablet but may not have 1 per kid).  I don't think they intend to assign individual devices in a "normal" year so it's hard to see how distance learning for a snow day could be required. 

Good point.

[Just Kate]

1 hour ago, Murphy101 said:

What? No. Everyone knows the wifi connection sucks when it snows. It’s been known to be down all day on snow days. 😉

^I jest but I’d 100% disconnect my wifi if we woke with a foot of snow outside. Because that happens less than 3 days a year in Oklahoma. Damned if we are going to miss it for zoom.  Stuff like this makes me ever so grateful to home school and super sad for kids not so fortunate right now. I’ve long said the problem with distance learning/work is how much it intrudes literally into the family home. 🙁 

Both of my kids are currently attending public school...while I completely and 100% agree with you, the stinky thing is that disconnecting WiFi for one day would just double the kids’ work for the following day. 
Right now I am so over virtual school. It is frustrating, time consuming (for me!!), and sadly my kids aren’t learning. I love homeschooling but virtual school isn’t homeschooling. I have a job myself that I need to focus on. It just stinks. 
So I agree and I am super bummed about the loss of the snow day. ☹️

[Farrar]

I've heard several people say this, but I don't buy it. I do think that maybe long term snow days may go away in some areas. Maybe you won't get a snow week anymore after a big storm. But just from a practical perspective, kids are going to go back eventually - even if online learning expands, this is not going to be a permanent state of things. And it's simply not practical to shift to virtual classrooms for a single day or two in most places. It doesn't work as well overall, some kids still lack access, when there's snow day weather there's more likely to be internet outages and power outages, coming up with a schedule for an individual day will take work... I just think snow days will continue to exist in various forms in most places.

[KungFuPanda]

I bet they do a more low-key version where they log onto google classroom and get their assignments instead of full day, on camera classes. 

[Lecka]

In a regular year I don’t think they will expect everyone to magically pivot to virtual for one day.

Also, our school district at least burned through a lot of snow days early in the year trying to adjust to COVID issues, and now they are out of snow days.  In a normal year they would not have used any snow days yet! 
 

So I think they will be back next year!  I hope so.  

[Carrie12345]

9 minutes ago, Lecka said:

In a regular year I don’t think they will expect everyone to magically pivot to virtual for one day.

Also, our school district at least burned through a lot of snow days early in the year trying to adjust to COVID issues, and now they are out of snow days.  In a normal year they would not have used any snow days yet! 
 

So I think they will be back next year!  I hope so.  

I agree that it would be a difficult expectation to hold “live” virtual school for a single, or even double day, but I do think snow days could easily be done away with by using non-live assignments, even for what could be considered a half day.  I don’t know about all states, but our late start/early dismissal days count toward the 180.  And then there’s still plenty of time to play in the snow without taking away vacation days.

I did grow up with snow days so I understand the excitement, but it isn’t as if we create snow days for kids in Florida because that excitement is so crucial to their experience, lol.

Read a book, write a poem, draw a picture, make some slime, cook lunch, build a snowman, and save summer, imo. (Adjust specifics to grade level, of course.)

[MEmama]

Snow days will happen here only if there are widespread power outages. Today is one of those days for us.

My senior is fine with fewer snow days because it means they might actually get out of school before the end of June.

eta I should add that our schools are all hybrid anyway so the teachers are set up for virtual classes and the students are accustomed to them. The high school schedule will stay the same as usual, except the few students who normally opt to take classes in person (which here means one half day per week) will just do virtual along with everyone else. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by MEmama

[teachermom2834]

Where I live the schools are not very good and they take off for everything. They don’t go 180 days even without snow days and then they are out for weather related events (cold, rain, snow, ice) every year. I think it is possible that true snow days are rare and they call it virtual. But I also suspect that what counts as a virtual day is very minimal. Just enough, whatever it is, to count as a school day for official purposes. So while the days may become virtual instead of just off, what really is required is probably nothing/ close to nothing/ no penalties if not completed. 
 

 

[TravelingChris]

Right now, we aren't even having virtual in my school district because there is a ransomware attack.   But in years past we have had snow (rare/y), ice (much more often) and cold days too (the buses can't run if the temps are below 10 degrees farneheit, I think.   I thought it was nuts about the cold but apparently it costs a lot to put in a second battery or whatever they need to have the buses running in very cold weather and we don't have that jkind of cold weather even every year so no one changes anything./

[Sherry in OH]

I loved snow days in the winter when I was a child, but come June regretted them.  Our school district would build two or three extra days into the calendar. If we had more unplanned days off than that the school year would be extended. 

The school districts I've lived in as an adult planned calamity days into the school calendar.   1st day off is free, 2nd day blizzard bag, 3rd day cancels a school holiday, then more blizzard bags and more holiday canceling.  The school districts try not to extend the school year by more than a day or two as it angers parents who have paid for camps or child care for those weeks.   Blizzard bags were canned assignments that parents could print at home or pick up at the public library.  Students were to complete and turn in the assignments to get credit for the missed school day.   Now intend of printable packets, the students complete the work online.   

 

 

[theelfqueen]

1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

Right now, we aren't even having virtual in my school district because there is a ransomware attack.   But in years past we have had snow (rare/y), ice (much more often) and cold days too (the buses can't run if the temps are below 10 degrees farneheit, I think.   I thought it was nuts about the cold but apparently it costs a lot to put in a second battery or whatever they need to have the buses running in very cold weather and we don't have that jkind of cold weather even every year so no one changes anything./

The cold rule here is -13F, and we are a district with minimal buses (our schools were mostly designed to be walk in). Sometimes they woildnt call a snow day when all the Iocal Air Force Bases were shut down and that would annoy me. Sometimes they would call a snow day when the rural part of the district had a lot of snow and road issues and the suburbs part had barely any snow.... it was always very inconsistent.  

[skimomma]

This has been a big topic of conversation where I live.  Most people are hoping that what we learned during the pandemic will mean the end of snow days.  We have a LOT of snow days.  We get a great deal of snow and our districts are far flung with some students spending an hour or more on buses.  Our road crews do great and even when we get 24+ inches overnight, our main roads are cleared and all looks fine from my windows.  What we can't see is the scene for those long bus routes with many roads not cleared until late in the day.  While the first few snow days of the year are happy occasions for most students, it gets old quickly, especially for middle school and older.  We have 10 days scheduled into he annual calendar but go over every year which means staying in school into the summer.  And they miss out on everything for that day, be it a long awaited basketball game or a band concert or holiday party.  The worst is when the day before a long break gets cancelled and some end up home for two weeks without their band instrument or snow pants or whatever else they left in their locker.  

We have homeschooled the whole time and I used to get flack from outsiders that I did not declare a snow day every time the schools cancelled.  I did always try to shorten the day so dd could get together with her free friends but if I took the whole day off every time, it would be very disruptive.  We did used to take "sun days" a lot before dd was high school age.  Our weather can be so oppressive and dreary that I would much rather take a day off when we could be outside soaking up some rare sun rather than on an already dismal day. 

[PeterPan]

Some teachers doing virtual are still going to their physical classroom to teach, so they're still doing snow days.

[DawnM]

Yes, we have been saying this since March.   No more snow or weather days unless there is no power.

[DawnM]

2 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Where I live the schools are not very good and they take off for everything. They don’t go 180 days even without snow days and then they are out for weather related events (cold, rain, snow, ice) every year. I think it is possible that true snow days are rare and they call it virtual. But I also suspect that what counts as a virtual day is very minimal. Just enough, whatever it is, to count as a school day for official purposes. So while the days may become virtual instead of just off, what really is required is probably nothing/ close to nothing/ no penalties if not completed. 
 

 

Do they have a min. amount of day they must have school?   

 

 

[teachermom2834]

Just now, DawnM said:

Do they have a min. amount of day they must have school?   

 

 

I don’t know. I can’t understand it at all. But they take more than regular breaks. Like other schools take a week for spring break and our county takes the week plus the Friday before and the Monday after. Then again for Easter they take Good Friday and the Monday after. Christmas other schools take about two weeks and they tack on days off at the beginning and end. Thanksgiving is the entire week. Fall break is the week plus the Friday and Monday on the other sides of it. I don’t understand it at all. Maybe I’m exaggerating but I have looked at their school calendar and they don’t even schedule 180 days. Then they end up with lots missed for weather/illness. 

[Danae]

Districts around here have been doing “e-learning” instead of snow days for 4-5 years now. For elementary that usually involves a grid of learning activities that you pick one from each column and have a parent sign off that you did them. 

[Storygirl]

My high schoolers have a snow day today!! The district first delayed, then cancelled classes for both the in-person students and the virtual students (our district allowed families to choose).

Our current district cancels school more often than the school that I attended did. But we are a wide ranging district with a lot of rural roads, and it's the rural areas that are hard to plow.

I don't know what other school districts around here chose to do. There are some that are 100% remote. There would not be a weather reason for them to cancel.

[mom2scouts]

We were expecting a lot of snow today. We received much less than expected, but many of the local schools, including some that are virtual, called a snow day last night. I thought it was odd because the last few years they have been requiring students to do "blizzard bags" or online assignments when they were afraid they were missing too many days. There was one local city school district that said they would NOT be taking any snow days this year since they're doing so much virtually anyway, but they have a significant low income and refugee population. 

[Loowit]

If we get snow this winter, I would guess that they will still have snow days.  The local schools are doing all sorts of schooling (hybrid, fully online, etc) depending on grade level, but teachers are expected to be in their classrooms even if it is fully remote learning.  My brother has an exception because he is high risk and is able to work from home.

[SounderChick]

We don't get many many snow days.  A few years ago they started doing 3 hr delays.  It pretty much guarantees they never have to cancel around here.    Kids have gotten like 3 days of internet being down so.  I think it kind of works out 

[ScoutTN]

They build 5-8 into the school calendars here, so no loss of vacation for a couple of freebie days in the winter. But with all the virtual capacity now, maybe the number of built-in days will go down? Ice and power outages happen here too, so I doubt they will go away entirely. 

I asked at my son's super-tiny private school and loved the answer, "Real snow, enough for sledding, should not be wasted!" The school leadership sees it as I do, snow day = a gift to be enjoyed. They too, build a few into the calendar. January and February are going to be rough this year, with the virus and digital school - our kids need all the real fun they can get, especially outdoor, active fun!  

[elegantlion]

My university restructured their snow days - it's a commuter school and I'm in a place that gets lots of ice. No more calling off class due to weather, you must go virtual and if you cancel class you must take it as personal time off - not sure how that works with faculty pay. Personally, I think it's going to bite them big time as we also have a lot of night classes that meet after people get off work - if people can't get home from work on time, they'll just end up being late for class or unable to come. I can see, and I probably would, complain about that it if affected my grade. 

[Hilltopmom]

Yes our district announced no more snow days. Not all students have school devices- only grade 4 and up but they don’t go home every night. High school will have virtual days instead and elementary will send home packet type stuff ahead of time.

Internet is still spotty in our rural area and goes out with snow.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Hilltopmom

[SKL]

My kids are all remote PS right now (because of Covid), and today WAS a snow day for them.

I assume it was because teachers weren't able to get to the school to broadcast their classes?

[PrincessMommy]

17 hours ago, Farrar said:

I've heard several people say this, but I don't buy it. I do think that maybe long term snow days may go away in some areas. Maybe you won't get a snow week anymore after a big storm. But just from a practical perspective, kids are going to go back eventually - even if online learning expands, this is not going to be a permanent state of things. And it's simply not practical to shift to virtual classrooms for a single day or two in most places. It doesn't work as well overall, some kids still lack access, when there's snow day weather there's more likely to be internet outages and power outages, coming up with a schedule for an individual day will take work... I just think snow days will continue to exist in various forms in most places.

The bolded.  Accessability is problem in many communities.  For some kids their phone is their only wifi connection and it's nearly impossible to write a paper or do a test on your phone.  Some famillies have one computer in their household.  Parents & multiple children sharing it. 

[elegantlion]

16 minutes ago, PrincessMommy said:

The bolded.  Accessability is problem in many communities.  For some kids their phone is their only wifi connection and it's nearly impossible to write a paper or do a test on your phone.  Some famillies have one computer in their household.  Parents & multiple children sharing it. 

Yeah, there is such a presumption that parents someone have all successfully bridged the digital divide during this crisis. Not true. 

[stephanier.1765]

We never had snow days. We had hurricane days and they weren't nearly as fun as snow days sound. On the plus side, I guess virtual kids in Florida are still getting days off for hurricanes since you can't learn with power lines down.

[melmichigan]

One of our local school districts had a virtual snow day today.  The roads were very icy and they called it because their teachers were teaching virtual from school.