Many schools are transitioning to online learning in the event of unexpected snowfall, but Northwest Academy has decided not to change its policy on snow days, leaving them as vacation days.
Snow has almost always meant a day off school in Portland, but many schools, especially those already in online learning, find it pointless to continue snow days when classes are already virtual.
Chris Schuck, Northwest Academy’s Head of School, says that the school is not going to adjust policy around snow days.
“There is a cost of time, energy and focus that moving online creates, both for students and teachers, just for an individual snow day,” says Schuck.
Joanne Kim, High School English Humanities Teacher, thinks that many students will either not be able to attend online classes on a snow day, or not have the technology needed in order to access the day’s lessons.
“If not everybody can access it, it just causes a stressful situation for everyone,” says Kim.
As Kim points out, a number of students at Northwest Academy do not have access to the technology needed to attend online classes, and it would be near impossible for the school to supply laptops and routers to students on a snow day.
“If we move online, we have to have a commitment to making that work for everybody.” Schuck says. “If we have a snow day, we can’t get laptops into the hands of students [who need them].”
A single snow day or episodic snow days are usually unexpected, coming as a surprise with little time for preparation. A single day online would present an array of challenges for administrators, such as contacting teachers, changing the schedule and notifying students, processes that can take much time and effort and would almost be counter productive to work on for a single day off.
“If we were going to have a closure due to, say Covid, we can plan that out, if you need a computer come on Friday afternoon between one and three,” Schuck says. “But on a snow day we’re just not really set up just to go like that.”
While one or two isolated snow days may remain as days off, a longer series of snow days may present itself to online learning.
“We haven’t developed an explicit policy on this, but I would say we would likely not transition to distance learning unless we had at least three consecutive snow days,” said Schuck.
Northwest Academy also plans to cancel classes for snow, even if we are already remote.
In February 2021, Northwest Academy, already in online learning, canceled three days of online school due to snowfall, which caused many power outages around Portland.
“If it is that type of snow that causes power outages, then that affects people’s connectivity, so it does not suit us to try to run classes where the kids are at home and can’t get online,” Schuck says.
Many Northwest Academy students are in favor of the decision to continue having snow days as days off.
“I like snow days,” says Teo Hamacher, a sophomore. “We don’t get snow a lot, so having days where you can go and actually enjoy the snow is nice.”
Other students disagree, citing that a snow day can feel irritating and disrupt the classroom dynamics.
“I would personally be in favor of it [online learning], considering missing days of school is very jarring and it causes the rest of it to be just worse,” says Lilly More Imboden, a freshman. “There are not many snow days, so testing it out for a few times would not be that bad.”
Aidan Van der Merwe agrees with More Imboden and also points out that most people can transition to online school quickly.
“I feel like it’s not too bad because online school does not take up as much time as in-person school,” says Van der Merwe. “A few hours [of school] in the morning and we still have most of the day.”
Many worries about snow days can be put to rest, due to the fact that Portland does not have an abundance of snow. The average annual snowfall in Portland is only 2.6 inches according to NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. This means that some years can have one or even no snow days.
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