In the Northeast, the season of snowfall has started. With multiple cold fronts bringing abundant amounts of snow, it is that time of year that many schools have to decide whether to cancel classes if the weather gets bad.
Many schools are already doing digital learning, so with students already doing school from home, are they still going to cancel school? In many ways, schools can just move students to online learning for days that have bad weather.
This is a sad reality for many kids who wish for the day off to go play in the snow with their friends.
Recently, in Western Pennsylvania, there was a large amount of snowfall. The first day of the snowfall, schools went to digital learning. The second day, when there was over a foot of snow in many places, even though students could go digital, many counties' superintendents cancelled classes and said to take the day off and go have fun with family. While digital learning has taken away some opportunities for snow days, in the case of large snowfall, there is still the chance to have them.
A snow day is about having a fun day off for kids, so letting them have that chance at an exciting day where they can take a break from school to build snowmen and have snowball fights is important.
Also, many students could be affected by the weather, either by power outages or even the need to go to a separate location from their home to access WIFI, which would make it impossible to do digital learning anyway.
While there is going to be a decline in the amount of snow days declared in this new digital future, hopefully many counties and school superintendents will take into consideration the benefits and constraints the snow days bring to all students before getting rid of them for good.