Are snow days a thing of the past?
Most former students likely recall the anticipation of snow – and the hope for an unexpected day off full of snowmen instead of studies.
A piece of legislation passed in 2019 that allowed districts to use flexible instruction days (FIDs) started to chip away at that. Then, mandated virtual learning in 2020 forced all teachers to transition to an at-home model for classes, streamlining the process of learning outside the classroom.
That means the end of the oft-wished-for snow day, right?
Not necessarily, said some area superintendents.
“(Snow days) are still there, and they still can be used,” said Keith Hartbauer, superintendent of Brownsville Area School District in Fayette County.
The caveat to that is that districts who opted in to FIDs – including Brownsville Area, Uniontown Area, Washington and Jefferson-Morgan school districts – have to determine if students will get that bonus day off, or whether the district will use a flexible learning day to keep the school year calendar intact.
School districts across Pennsylvania are required to provide 180 days of learning for students throughout the school year. To do that, many build in make-up days to get the time in without cutting into students’ summers.
In the Uniontown Area School District, which includes the mountains of Fayette County, Curriculum Coordinator Mindy Harris said if heavy snowfalls necessitate cancellations, the district can opt to turn scheduled days off into school days. After that, she said, the district will use its five FIDs.
“We value the in-person instruction the teachers provide; it’s still the number-one way to deliver instruction, but we also want to take advantage of what the state has given us,” Harris said.
In the Washington School District, officials have taken the opposite approach.
Superintendent George Lammay said there are annual discussions about the school calendar with their education association and the school board. The consensus of those talks was to use the five FIDs. Any days beyond that – be it for inclement weather or some other reason – would be tacked on to the end of the school year.
Hartbauer and Brandon W. Robinson, the superintendent at Jefferson-Morgan School District in Greene County, said their districts take a mix-and-match approach.
Both agree that the FIDs provide, as intended, flexibility for maintaining the school year’s calendar, but neither rules out the use of a traditional snow day as a way to give students a reprieve from remote learning.
“Most people seem to like it because they don’t want to go into the second week of June or have a one-day spring break,” Robinson said. “Kids need a break.”
While plans vary by district, the one thing all of the interviewed school officials agree on is that in-person learning provides students with the best education.
“The most important thing that happens in school is the face-to-face interaction between students and teachers,” Lammay said.