Opinion: Snow Days in Maine Should Not Be Remote Learning Days
Snow Days
As a kid, you couldn’t care less about the weather.
When your parents talked about anything that wasn’t fun or exciting, you tuned them out.
But, when the word “snow” came up in conversation, you tuned right back in with the hopes of having a snow day.
As my coworkers will joke, I was in middle school like, last year, so I vividly remember the high hopes and excitement of a possible snow day.
Rather than watch the boring news, my friends and I would refresh the snow day calculator until we got the results we wanted: a 75% chance or higher and we were filled with glee. It seriously felt like Christmas Eve.
It seems like today, schools are a little more lenient when it comes to snow days. When I was in school, it would have to dump buckets and then freeze for our school to even consider canceling. We live in Maine, so it has to be a pretty crazy storm to keep us off the roads.
I remember days driving into high school and then having to get sent home early because the roads were getting so bad. That made no sense to us, way to risk our lives just to get a few hours of school in. I even rear-ended my high school boyfriend in the school parking lot when my Toyota hit black ice. Smh!
Snow Days v. Remote Learning
While I benefit from and love the remote work that our pesky pandemic provided, I do not think kids should be learning remotely on snow days.
There have been talks around town about eliminating snow days and replacing them with remote learning days and I am personally against that.
No, I do not have kids. Yes, I have an opinion on everything.
There are a few reasons I feel this way. First off, kids deserve a day off. Snow days were the highlight of winter in my school days and I was extra lucky because my mom had a daycare, so I got to spend the whole day watching movies and playing in the snow with my friends.
But, it’s even deeper than just letting kids have the thrill and high of a random day off from school.
Kids’ lives at home are all extremely different and it’s unfair to assume that a day of remote learning is even feasible or productive. They could be an older sibling that has to help a single parent take care of the younger kids running around; they could have issues with WiFi and access to the right technology or quiet spaces; there’s a whole list of reasons why it may not pan out positively or effectively for some kids compared to others.
I don’t know if this is a popular or unpopular opinion but it’s just how I personally feel.
What do you think?