Throughout the years leading up to high school, when students would clear the dew from their window and see the Earth piled knee deep with white powder, they could only hope for the best. And when they heard the telephone ring and their mom yell, “No school!” it was a blessing that could brighten up any kid’s face. Those days of celebration have changed, and while the initial idea of a snow day still excites any kid, young or old, the subsequent consequences of a day off suck out the cheer from such a once delightful surprise.
Does a snow day still mean a day off full of friends, movies and hot cocoa? Yes. Everyone needs an occasional day off to focus on your loved ones and catch up on rest. But a day full of relaxation quickly turns to worries of school, clubs and other activities, especially for the people “behind the scenes.”
“When we cancel school, we are not able to have contests or practices, so we have to cancel everything; there’s a lot of communication involved. Part of it’s hard because as an administrator, I have something planned every day, so moving everything affects a lot of things. In order to cancel all that stuff, we need to be working immediately, and I don’t think people realize that. There’s work that goes on behind the scenes,” said athletic director Tina Woolard.
Not only do snow days drastically affect the school’s administrators and directors, but they also affect teachers, especially AP instructors, due to the strict schedule they and their students must follow.
“Snow days actually can drastically affect many AP classes because it reduces the amount of time of instruction…for the AP science curriculum, there’s very little room for missing days,” said AP physics teacher Paul Holder.
For students, in-school tests can be rescheduled, but the AP test at the end of the year is a different story.
“The end of the [school] year date might change, but the AP date does not,” Holder emphasized.
These changed schedules can force students to be overloaded with tests and homework that once were fairly spread out, but now crammed together. Some student athletes who were in Washington over the Martin Luther King weekend for a tournament had to now study constantly between games in order to stay on top of the changed testing schedules.
“The snow days were tough on us. It put a lot of pressure to study over the long weekend in Washington during our tournament. We were already jam packed with games, meals, and traveling, and these snow days added much more time and work to the schedule,” said varsity basketball player Aidan Einloth.
Snow days affect everyone linked to the school. Administrators must cancel all activities. Teachers must instruct faster and change deadlines. Students must cram due to the changed schedule. Parents too must change their summer vacations due to the increased number of school days! And while snow days may seem full of disadvantages and cons, the days off were created for a single, very important purpose: to keep students safe.
“We have to make sure we’re safe, and kids are safe. When it’s that cold, it’s not safe. We do have kids who walk, and it’s already dangerous, so we really have to take all that into consideration,” Woolard stated.
So whether a student who wakes up to a snow day and cheers like it’s Christmas morning, or one who sulks knowing the consequences it soon will bring, just remember it’s important to keep the community safe.