Snow days "snow" more
How far our system has fallen
Locally, there’s school districts who don’t do regular snow days. They do virtual learning days. Leftover from the days of c*vid, this is a practice that has eliminated, essentially, the best part of living in a place with four seasons. Instead of looking for your school’s name on the scrolling cancellation list, you see “virtual learning” on the TV screen and know that you need to plug in your Chromebook and your parents need to make plans to monitor 1-6 children of varying ages for 4-6 hours in different areas of the house, because no one is going to be relaxing or enjoying the snow day. And if mom or dad is supposed to be at work? Other arrangements must be made. My siblings and I stayed with a babysitter or a grandparent on snow days if need be. But now? Internet access and chargers are necessary and “cameras on, please!” and unmute-mute-unmute-mute are what you, the parent, will be doing with your day “off”.
As a former teacher in one of those districts, I had to teach (“teach”) 25 kids on Zoom, with the principal popping in to do observations and check to make sure I was, in fact, teaching. My own toddler was acting crazy off to my side and my husband was teleworking in the next room. Paw Patrol could be heard in my background, I’m sure.
We had to follow a strict schedule and, by the time the internet was loosely working well enough for all involved, it was time for our first “recess”. This was was 15 minutes of camera-off time, but I’d leave the meeting open so the poor kids could at least socialize for a few minutes (the chat disabled, of course).
There was no point to this dog and pony show and it was, indeed, a box-checking exercise in fidelity to the government. That’s a strong statement, but this is what I want you, the parent, to know:
When your child’s school is virtual on snow days, it is an incentive from state government. Districts are encouraged to be sure that school continues, uninterrupted, on these days. It doesn’t matter if anything is actually accomplished; it’s a numbers game. Absences are counted. Teachers must take a personal day if they don’t have internet access to log in. Yes, even if the power is out. It doesn’t matter if everyone involved is enormously inconvenienced for no gain.
For example, one virtual day I taught, I was so sick that I could barely stay seated in my chair. I couldn’t stop coughing. I was dizzy. I couldn’t breathe through my nose. But I wasn’t going to waste a personal day so they could…call in a sub? I’m not even sure how that would work, to be honest.
It depends on the state, and laws in place concerning snow days and the number of required days on the calendar. My state, for example, is trying to persuade schools away from adopting a 4-day week. By raising the number of school days in the year, they are saying, you need a 5-day week to meet this requirement. Therefore, you can’t throw away snow days as days off, you must meet virtually to check off a day of school completed.
Again, the rules vary from district to district but I’ve seen: no grading on virtual learning days, no new material being taught, incentives offered to students if everyone shows up, incentives offered to teachers if everyone shows up…and so on. If you don’t have computer or internet access, you can complete a packet of paper work to be counted as “present” for the day. It’s a numbers game, is what I’m saying.
This brings up an entirely separate topic (eh, maybe not entirely) of kids and too much technology use: We complain our kids are always on devices and then, on a snow day, we…put them on a device by design, as if it’s their purpose.
If you’re a parent or grandparent or teacher or generally just a concerned community member and you live in a school district who encourages virtual learning on snow days, I would just encourage you to start asking questions. We will never stop seeing the effects of what virtual learning did to our kids (stalling and disadvantaging them) in 2020-2021 and this is one of the lasting practices that did it.
