Taking away days from April break is unfair, snow day policy must be altered

Genevieve Frucht ’24, Editor in Chief|December 6, 2021

This year’s snow day policy is back to the policy before COVID, which is that the first few snow days will be added on to the end of the year, and then if more are needed they will be taken from April break.

Photo by Genevieve Frucht ’24

This year’s snow day policy is back to the policy before COVID, which is that the first few snow days will be added on to the end of the year, and then if more are needed they will be taken from April break.

This school year has brought back many aspects of pre-COVID-19 normalcy, including the snow day policy. Exclusively for the 2020-2021 school year, there were no back-to-back snow days; if a second snow day was required, it was a virtual-learning day rather than a day off. This year, however, there will be no snow-related virtual learning days. If we go over our six allotted snow days, additional days will be taken from April break.

The policy of taking away days from April break is unfair to students and families and must be altered. 

I am personally okay with the policy of adding snow days to the end of the year as I understand that we must have a certain amount of school days. However, taking away days from April break is unfair to families who make travel plans they cannot easily cancel.  

Since we were online for so long last year, we have the tools and knowledge to have a few days of online school if necessary. Taking away days from April break could become difficult and costly for many. Therefore it would be more practical to have online learning days if we have more than the six appropriated snow days. 

According to Delta’s website, many of their tickets have cancellation fees starting at $200. Because this is such a high starting price, families may decide not to cancel their trips and miss school days instead. Therefore, I think it would be beneficial to have online days rather than a shortened break so that students don’t miss school and fall behind in their classes.  

Additionally, having a week-long break is very beneficial to both students and teachers because we get to relax and forget about the stress of school for a week. Vacations lower stress levels, which one day off of school probably won’t do as we still have homework and tests to study for during that time. Every time we have a school break, I return to school more motivated to do work and to study than before I left.

All in all, taking away days from April break is unfair and could end up with students missing school and falling behind in their classes. Having online days would be more beneficial to students, teachers, and families as a whole.  Given our considerable experience with virtual learning, we should reinstitute online days rather than risk shortening April break.