battleground

Given how winter is in full swing, Sahs and Gupta debate the importance of the traditional snow day, as it has been replaced with e-learning and remote opportunities.

Michael Sahs

the poets imagine or dirty and disgusting like it often winds up being after staying by the road for too long. It’s really lacking this year.

As students, I think the most important part of snow for much of our lives has been the question of whether there will be enough snow on a given night to get us out of school the next day. I don’t think many of us hoped the answer to that would be no. However, not only has snow become less common, but snow days have become less common even relative to that. We just don’t see them much anymore, if ever.

The snow day does not need to be around. I can certainly see that. But we keep around so many out-of-date customs besides the snow day, not just in our schools but in our lives at large. We still hold pep rallies, but couldn’t we spend that time on important classwork? Shouldn’t we be completely devoted to the furthering of our students’ educations?

But pep rallies are crucial for school spirit. However, can we argue we don’t need school spirit, and that we only need the teams because that’s what gets the kids into college?

Wehaven’t had much snow this year. It’s unfortunate; snow is a beautiful thing when it first falls, and winter just doesn’t feel right when it’s lacking. Winter for me is characterized by snow, whether that snow is fresh and white like

As the brutal Chicago winter is in full swing, thousands of kids should be rejoicing at the possibility of the age-old celebration: the snow day. But the ubiquity of e-learning during quarantine made it possible for students to learn from their homes. Gone are the days when a few inches of snow prevented school learning, instead replaced by virtual learning and the death of the snow day. And for good.

The first reason for why the death of the snow day is good is that it helps low-income students. IllinoisPolicy on November 3, 2021 notes that 1 in 5 students in Illinois are chronically absent and 60% of those are low-income students. In a world where low-income students have fewer resources to help them catch up, they cannot afford excessive snow days. We cannot sacrifice the success of lowincome students purely for nostalgia.

Some argue that snow days are good because they offer a nice reprieve from the typical grind of school. Kate Cry and Morgan One of The Atlantic explain that during quarantine, they served as a necessary mental health for many students.

With the advent of hybrid learning, the idea that we can have a day off of school just because the weather prevents us from going has faded into a thing of the past, and I, and many others, am concerned about that. The snow day forms an integral part of the youth experience, as I see it, and the death of the snow day is just another symptom of a United States more intensely than ever devoted to always getting the thing done, of killing leisure and convenience in the name of efficiency.

And they’re right. It is nice to have days off of school--but that is what pre-planned holidays are. Spontaneous and unexpected snow days make it difficult for students and teachers alike to adapt changes in schedules and test days. Especially as finals are approaching in mid-January, the last thing that students need is a surprise schedule change in most of their classes.

And finally, let’s be honest here: snow days are not just pure fun in the snow. In 2014, The New York Times in reported that for parents, snow days are often rife with shoveling, watching children’s movies, and taking work calls. But online learning relieves some of the stress that parents face. Plus, driving in the snow to drop kids off at local parks and hills can increase stress, workload, and the potential for car accidents. Research from the Illinois Department of Transportation found in 2019 that every winter, 27 fatal car accidents occur--much of which is caused by people driving to work or other snowrelated activities.

There are a trove of other problems, too. As The New York Times continues on, “snow days force many to choose between staying at home and losing a day’s pay” for low-wage workers. When it comes to snow days, temporary fun comes at an acute cost.

No. School spirit is fun. And so are snow days. We can’t pretend to be both fun and concerned completely with education, and by getting rid of the snow day but keeping things like pep rallies and spirit weeks, we do pretend. It’s all right to have a day of school be missed because of weather, even though there are ways to still hold school in session. It’s not a problem to have a little fun.

The snow day is dying, and that is a tragedy.

Snow days are fun--no doubt. But that doesn’t mean they are necessary. Online learning will--and should--remain dominant as snow days die.

Ajay Gupta