Snow Days Should NOT Be a Thing of the Past

I remember the large dials and printed numbers on the stereo in my living room in Elementary School. I remember tuning in to the local radio station and listening carefully — as the announcers would go county-by-county — to hear if there was a snow day. I remember shrieking delightfully and dancing around the living room in a flannel nightgown upon hearing the announcer read my school’s name aloud. Rarely would I go back to bed. I have distinct memories of my mom making me a mug of hot chocolate (It was always Swiss Miss with the mini marshmallows that never seemed to dissolve.) to celebrate. 

Except for my junior year of high school (1993-94), we had very few snow days since I grew up in New Jersey. Back in the 1980s and 90s, school cancelations wouldn’t occur unless there were a few inches of snow on the ground or actively falling during the morning. 

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“What do you think the chances are that we’ll have a FID day tomorrow?” Ari asked me when the three of us were eating cupcakes after taking part in a Martin Luther King Day Children’s Celebration.

“90%,” I replied. After all, this is 2024, and we live in Central Pennslyvania. Plus, our school district emailed alerting parents to plan for a potential FID late last week.

“And 10% that we’ll go school?”

“Maybe 5% delayed opening and 5% that you’ll have a regular school day,” I surmised.

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The Pennsylvania Department of Education approved school districts to use Flexible Instruction Days (FID) as an alternate form of instruction instead of canceling school for inclement weather. We can use up to five FIDs without making up the time.

After polling families about their thoughts on FID, our school district began using them during the 2020-21 school year. (Marc and I were in the minority of people who voted to keep snow days as snow days.) Since that was the year Isabelle attended school remotely, it didn’t bother me that much. 

But now I detest them. Here’s why:

• They’re asynchronous. While teachers are required to hold an office hour, students don’t have access to live instruction. I’d rather see a few days added onto the end of the school year (Listen, I taught in the NYC Public Schools. I taught as late as June 28th. I never had a snow day during my years of teaching in NYC, though I should’ve!) rather than having several asynchronous instructional days. Especially in Elementary School, I think there’s a Higher quality of instruction when kids are in the school building.
• They’re not accessible to all kids. While students may bring home their school-issued devices, not every household has wifi access. Plus, if multiple students are working from home + adults are working from home while supervising said children, it can slow down the internet considerably. 
• They ruin the joy of a proper snow day. Instead of snuggling by the fireplace, baking, reading books, watching movies, and playing in the snow, children are on iPads. Doing work. What’s the fun of this?!

Some people might say FIDs are better than taking away vacation days. I’d agree with that. But I’m not a proponent of taking away vacation days to compensate for snow days. (See the fact that I taught until June 28th. While I had an air-conditioned classroom in NYC, my room in Rhode Island was not air-conditioned. We made up the handful of snow days we had each year in June. Was it pleasant? No. But we still had off for a week in February and April, which was lovely.) Taking away vacation days has become a horrible practice in the past decade or two. No one wants their promised vacation days taken away.

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Isabelle is old enough to remember what a REAL snow day was. She had several of them when we lived in Harrisburg. I have beautiful memories of those days when we’d read books in front of the fireplace, bake, and play in the snow.

Not Ari. As a first grader, Ari has only known the possibility of a FID but hasn’t had one yet. Heck, his teacher has even practiced for them! (That should make things much smoother for parents like me who hope to still get work done while my kids work.) Perhaps the allure will wear off after a few of them, and he’ll see things differently. For now, he’s eagerly awaiting a FID tomorrow.

Published by Stacey Shubitz

I am a literacy consultant who focuses on writing workshop. I’ve been working with K-6 teachers and students since 2009. Prior to that, I was a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in New York City and Rhode Island.

I’m the author of Craft Moves (Stenhouse Publishers, 2016) and the co-author of Jump Into Writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2021), Welcome to Writing Workshop (Stenhouse Publishers, 2019), and Day By Day (Stenhouse, 2010).

I live in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and children. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, doing Pilates, cooking, baking, making ice cream, and reading novels.
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