Snow Days take a Vacation?

By: Melody Sprague

November 26, 2019, Greenville NY Opinion

I believe that we should get as many snow days as we need to take instead of only five. Each time we are faced with snow the school administration has to make an impossible choice, take a snow day that might turn out to not be needed, or risk the lives of children as happened years ago in the Ichabod School district where a bus was in an accident transporting students instead of the school closing. In Greenville, we have had to have a shortened Spring Break because we have gone over our allotted snow days. This has happened once in the past fifteen years due to snow, and the district also needed to make up days due to Hurricane Irene.  There must be a better way, and with technology there is. 
The question is, how do you make up the missed work? There are many solutions to getting work done even when the students and teachers are not in classes. Many of the teachers use Google Classroom. On the snow days, teachers could post an assignment that is due the day after we get back because if a student doesn’t have internet or bad internet at their house they can get a paper copy from school the day they get back. 

Five snow days a year is not enough. We could get really bad snow and our roads will be icy, and we would have to go to school on a 2-hour delay because our school is too worried about using up snow days instead of worrying about the safety of all the people who have to get to the school. But there is a solution to having as many snow days as possible, which I already said, but they are very important reasons why 5 snow days a year is not enough. 

Other states have started taking their student’s safety seriously. In Pennsylvania, snow days are now turning into workdays from home. Schools could use these technologies to give students more flexibility to learn from home throughout the year, and not just on snow days. They even experienced bad internet connection and this is how it was addressed. Some places have bad internet connection, students can still learn by studying/reviewing, and when they go back to school they can get a paper copy or do the work online, and they have a certain amount of time to hand it in. Students might be able to work from home when they are sick like some workplaces allow employees to work from home. Schools are going to start to look different because we’re in the 21st century and everything changes.