Opinion: Bring Back Snow Days!

The opinions expressed are not endorsed in any way by CB West High School or this news website and are the writer’s own.

It starts snowing… “Over a foot expected overnight”… no decision by the school district yet, so you focus again on homework… Finally, you open Instagram: NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!!, reads the iconic caption of CB West senior Nick Isaac’s post. You check your texts: Minecraft tonight boys?? No school tomorrow, you read in your friends’ group chat. Ah, yes… the jubilation of a snow day! Right?

No. Wrong.

As us students found out last Monday, February 1^st, after approximately a foot of (very, very heavy) snow fell on our driveways overnight, we couldn’t hop into a pair of boots and go sledding because we had an “asynchronous day” of school. That’s right: we had to do work.

Now of course, with the vastly increased capabilities of online schooling due to a pandemic, having school during a snowstorm may make sense to a district administrator. It might help reach state requirements for school days, help with funding, or on paper, it may seem to keep the flow of things together better. But in practice, taking away “snow days” is a flawed decision.

When I woke up last Monday, I first had to shovel the driveway for my dad, because he told me it was better to shovel before the next wave of snow dropped and patted down the existing one. Though I questioned his logic and would have rather started the day with schoolwork, it’s not like I had a choice.

Then I got started with school. It was the first day of the semester, so I hadn’t even met some of my teachers yet; the teachers, though, had a requirement to give work regardless. The work wasn’t bad, but with my four classes each taking about 45 minutes, it wasn’t until about 1:30 P.M. that I had finished school.

SHOVEL TIME!

After school, I had to shovel, and as my fellow shovelers can attest to, the snow last Monday was thick. First for my dad (again), then for my neighbor’s mailbox, then for another neighbor my mom volunteered my help to, and while I had to turn down a few offers by passing neighbors to shovel more driveways, I was outside shoveling until 6:30 that night.

Not that my experience is the worst thing that could happen to a high school kid, but I mention it to illustrate some of the responsibilities that come along with a snowstorm. Rather than being a fun and relaxing day with some responsibilities, that Monday was stressful, busy, and no fun (if you argue that kids don’t need fun, you might be right, but congratulations, you have no soul).

And to address an administrator’s standpoint, the asynchronous school day on the day of a snowstorm is ineffective, despite its intentions. The work that us students are given is mindless “busy-work”, and students and teachers would be much better served by having the day to reorganize, reassess, and recharge on their own for the coming days.

To a schoolchild, there is nothing more magical than getting a snow day sure to be full of glee, spend time outdoors, and sip hot chocolate. District administrators were children themselves once, too, waiting to see if their school’s name would be mentioned on the local radio list of closed schools.

If all else fails to persuade on this argument, at least appreciate this: we students have lost enough to a year-long pandemic. It would be a shame if we lost this, too.