The first text came about 6:15 AM. It was from a now retired former school superintendent from a local district. It was short and to the point.
You have gotten soft. It is not even snowing anymore.
He was half-joking. But it definitely speaks to some changing expectations as earlier this month, our district, along with many others locally had two snow days.
When I started as superintendent 14 years ago. There was an unspoken code with colleagues. We don’t call snow days. Snow days are a sign of weakness. Maybe I am overstating it a bit, but I think I went seven years without calling a snow day. Now, it feels like I call at least one every year.
I have written before about snow days. I last wrote about them in January of 2020, A Social Media Snowstorm. Here is part of what I said:
Of course, the truth of it is that making snow day decisions sucks. You can be sure that half the people think you make the wrong decision. I get lots of emails about how decisions get made – and it is a bit of art and science. The goal is to keep schools open whenever possible. Snow days are a huge inconvenience, and often force parents to take unplanned time off of work, and have huge ripple effects beyond just our schools. That said, we have to be sure it is safe for our staff, who often travel from long distances to get to work, and safe for our students and families who need to walk or drive to school to be able to attend.
The timing of this post is really important. It is just a couple of months before our entire school system was thrown into flux with COVID – when opening, closing, or doing a bit of both at the same time became the norm. And now, after the COVID experience, things have changed around calling snow days. The community seems to have shifted and the “line” of the snow day has moved. Without the empirical evidence to support this claim, I feel like snow days are easier to call, and more readily accepted than they were before COVID. Here is what I think has happened:
- The growth in digital tools mean many classes (particularly in high school) can stay connected via virtual classrooms and learning is moved virtually but they sense of “falling behind” is less than it used to be.
- More families have some increased flexibility with one parent working remotely, or having the ability in an emergency to work remotely thus limiting the childcare crunch caused by a snow day.
It is hard to quantify this, but on an “about once a year” basis allowing kids a day to play in the snow and enjoy weather which in our part of the world is still very rare, is a fun break and supports well-being – something that has got ever increased attention.
Now, I don’t want to trivialize this at all. I get that massive imposition of many families of a snow day. I also know it means some people who intersect with the school system will lose work / pay for the day. It is just worth noting, that I think the community values have changed.
Again, a very small sample size. We had two snow days in mid-January. I was expecting a barrage of complaints for not opening, especially on the second day. They didn’t come. I heard from other local districts that had snow days – the response was similar. The only really negative feedback I got that week was a criticism for not having a third snow day because of the lingering ice and snow on the sidewalks and some side streets. If this was 2019 and we called a second snow day, my inbox would have been full of angry emails.
Of course community values can swing back. But it will be interesting to see if the tolerance for snow days will be on the list of lasting impacts of the COVID pandemic.
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