During one of the coldest winters on record, the frequent occurrence of snow days reveals how fragile our school districts snow policy is.
In a recently conducted interview with Assistant principal Mrs. Bartsch, when asked about the factors that go into the decision-making on whether to cancel or not she said “It’s how cold it is because kids have to wait for buses, so if its beyond -15 degrees that’s the cut-off for kids to be waiting and if it’s snow it’s how the roads are handling, but if the snow keeps accumulating then they call school.” In a follow up on if snow days effect the school calendar she said, “for us not a lot we just lose that day.” and “we never used enough to add days to the end of the year but that’s a possibility if we use up 6 of our snow days.” Given her insight on the inner workings of the district, when asked about if changes should be made, she said, “they need to take a look at who has to come in those days.”
Switching to the student perspective, Northwest senior Charles Chege said, “I don’t think they keep the student’s safety in mind”. In a follow up question when asked on how the snow day’s impact his ability to complete work from an assigned class, he said, “I think it makes it harder for the teacher but usually they tailor to if we miss stuff because of the snow day.” Finally, Chege’s suggestions for improvement on the district rules were “It should be more then 6 snow days. But when we had Covid and we were online they should give a daily assignment and post it, we have computers for a reason.”
Furthermore, English teacher Ms. Morris said in reference to why the district approaches snow days a certain way by saying, “I completely understand why they have to do it, because some schools start at 7 and they have to notify all the cafeteria people, some kids get picked up at 6 in the morning.” In her opinion on the role school cancellations play when teaching new material, she says “I just adjust, I don’t feel like it’s anything to get worked up about. You can take something out of a plan, and you’ll be fine.” In the closing question of the interview, she had several concerns on the aspects of the snow day policy. “My big thing right now is the wind chill factor. I just worry a lot about the kid’s who’s parents just send them out the door with not the proper gear and have them just standing at the bus stop for 30 minutes cause the bus is running late too and that’s what concerns me.”
In conclusion, through the examination from multiple sources on their thoughts and opinions of the snow day policy and technology, we can conclude that the current district policy for snow days isn’t great but it meets the bare minimum needs to keep the students and staff safe.
