Are snow days history?

As snow falls, children have traditionally eagerly awaited the superintendent’s announcement that schools will be closed because roads are unsafe.

Remote learning could change that.

Superintendent of Schools Bryan Luizzi wants to keep the convention when schools are attending in-person learning learning, but not it when remote learning is in effect, unless there are other mitigating circumstances, he said at a hybrid virtual Board of Education meeting Tuesday, Dec. 8.

“Snow days can count as a school days if you do them as remote days,” Luizzi said.

The state Board of Education announced on Oct. 7 that school districts could count remote learning days instead of using snow days.

“A snow day is intended to limit student movement to and from school when conditions are deemed unsafe,” Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona wrote in a letter dated October 27.

Luizzi explained that “the challenge with that if we are in session and a snow day hits, rarely does it come where we call it the day before,” Luizzi said. Instead, “what happens is it is 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. it is called based on different factors.”

“It is unrealistic to think students would be able to quickly flip into remote instruction on a random Wednesday that we have a snowstorm,” the superintendent said. “So in those instances we will have a traditional snow day that we will make up as we always have.”

“If our district is remotely learning and a snowstorm occurs, then we could count that as a school day and we will,” Luizzi said. “Because they are used to logging in, it would keep that rhythm going.”

“I think parents will be grateful if we give kids something to do on those days because sending them out to go sledding with the friends” is not realistic because “if we are in remote learning, it is due to COVID.”

However, “we might shorten the day a little if it is nice snow so they can go out to make some snowmen,” he added.

Luizzi said there would be exceptions, when remote learning would be used instead of a snow day. “If we have a lot of snow this winter and we do end up canceling several days, then we may look at as a remote learning day so we don’t have to make it up at the end of the year,” he said.

The district does not build in snow days, “so if we have a snow day it's automatically added to the calendar in June,” Luizzi wrote in an email.

He would also want to avoid taking days away from April break, “then we will adjust and we will make that change,” Luizzi said.

“When necessary, districts can provide all students with remote learning on those days in a manner consistent with the regulatory requirements outlined in Adapt, Advance, Achieve and Addendum 12,” Cardona said, in his October letter.

The decision would be up to the superintendents, he noted in the letter.