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Canvas should be used to combat course-compression that results from snow days Realizing our resources

By Elizabeth Payton

With the priority of student and staff safety in mind, cancelling school due to snow days cannot be avoided and so, the district should provide more insight for teachers on how to minimize academic disruption due to bouts of inclement weather.

Though any absences, either from a student or from the teacher, can cause a temporary disruption in student learning, when school is cancelled due to hazardous weather conditions, as happens in Missouri, classes are often times required to compress or shorten their curriculum.

Without an alternative method in place for students to piece together these missed concepts, they may be left with a lack of understanding of the content or their grades and exam scores may suffer.

Individual teachers are sometimes responsible for over 100 students, as well as some students are booked with other classes and extracurricular activities, so finding time to solidify concepts, especially in higher-level courses, can be a challenge.

NKCSD high schools follow an A-day, B-day schedule, where students have one set of four classes on A days and a different set on B days. These days alternate, so one full school week might be: Mon.-A, Tues.- B, Wed.-A, Thurs.-B, Fri.-A; the following week would start Monday as a B-day and follow the same pattern.

Four of the five snow days called this school year were on B days and when a phenomenon like this happens, the pace of the B-day classes can be disproportionately affected.

Math and science teacher Marcy Holwick described missing these class periods as “demotivating” for her Algebra II students. She said the content may be difficult and new for the students so “having those gaps can really make a big difference.”

Likewise, her college-level course, AP Physics, is already a fast-paced course, but as more days are missed, it has to be amped up to be even faster, she said.

“What I end up having to do is ratchet towards the pace that can be maintained by kids that could be considered ‘advanced AP kids,’” Holwick said. “Sometimes kids start getting discouraged and think that they’re not very smart, which is not the case, it’s just that I don’t have as much time as I would like to develop some of their skills and have them feel secure.”

Missed class lessons are generally difficult to make up, and with the accelerated pace or difficult concepts some classes may offer, combined with school cancellations, there isn’t a lot of room for reviewing or reteaching concepts.

“[Snow days] can tend to require the kids to do more learning on their own, and the idea of doing a college course in high school is that you get more time in the classroom,” Holwick said.

According to the video “How are snow day decisions made?,” released by the NKC Schools Communications Department, snow days are made up at the end of the year by adding the cumulative number of snow days onto the last day of school. This year, makeup days will be added after May 20.

For senior and AP students, these make-up days might not even matterunits will still need to be compressed or cut out entirely to accommodate senior graduation and AP exams, both of which take place in early May.

Overall, teachers should be able to better utilize online systems, such as Canvas, to help students reinforce material due to missed days, especially school-wide absences that can compress the curriculum.

Canvas is an online “classroom” program in which teachers can create assignments, display announcements and upload materials for their students to see. Often times, Canvas is used to link to online versions of class textbooks, host quizzes/exams and organize online assignments. All students have a login through their district ID and computer passwords. The district should, most importantly, make this program easier for teachers to work with and require it to be a standard in academic classrooms, as a supplement to the curriculum and an alternative resource for material. “Only one of my AP classes are on Canvas, but I have three total, so I try to communicate with my other teachers and ask about what I missed,” senior Sarah Hoxworth said. “I definitely think [Canvas] could be a good resource because all of the info and units are right there and… it’s organized. You can always know what’s going on and what you missed.”

There is no question about the legitimacy of cancelling school due to possible hazardous weather conditions, but creating a proactive system to help address the setbacks due to these unplanned cancellations is vital in allowing students to fully engage with the course, rather than be taught to a test.