Please Please Please, can we save the Snow Day? There is a sound rationale for this, hear me out.

Technology has replaced the horse and buggy, the typewriter, the telegraph, and many other things. Now, instead of a ‘snow day,’ school districts have the opportunity to have an ‘E-Learning Day.’ Forget that.

Why?

I loved snow days when I was six, sixteen, and sixty. There is a reason for this, and I believe there is an educational benefit. School is generally in session about 180 days a year. Three days makes no difference. I do think after three days you do then provide instruction somehow then. Three days is less than two percent of the year, and I can say on behalf of educators, we’re not that good.

My parents took me to preschool at the age of four, one way or another (Deborah Harry, Blondie), I continually went to school until June 11, 2021, the first day of summer break and one of the days I could call my retirement day. I spent over thirty years as a classroom teacher and coach. I have seen it all.

I know, I know. You damned teachers have summers off, every holiday, all these vacations, we do. If your brats were more well-behaved, we might not need them, and that goes for you moms (and occasionally dads) in the helicopter. Land it, schools should be ‘no-fly zones,’ the doctor cut the cord-your turn.

Snow days are fun. They are fun for the kids, they are fun for the adults. It is undeniable we get days off. Lots of them. We don’t get to pick them, they are contractually bargained. A couple times a year, we get a gift, as do the kids, take a day off today. All businesses have something, we have snow days. The last one I had, the phone rang at 5 AM, I knew what it was, and I lay in bed laughing out loud.

These days are actually refreshing. Life is hard now, especially for kids growing up. I realize it is a hardship for working parents, and so are a lot of things. Jobs outside of education go year-round. Schools have a start day and an end day, everything is scheduled. I used to joke I could only go to the restroom every sixty-two minutes.

Every classroom, every building, has routines. There are built-in things like sports seasons, homecoming, concerts, plays, and all types of things. Snow Days are unannounced fun. No one gets hurt, and maybe lives are saved by having them. At least teenagers aren’t navigating dangerous roads watching TikTok in a blizzard. The future of Western civilization isn’t going to collapse.

Confession, when my phone rang very early in the dark one morning in my final year, I giggled like a small child knowing it was the snow day call. Now, every day is a snow day. When you get there, I think you’re going to like it.

If the administration is so concerned about the quality of instruction, then end this ridiculous and antiquated system of having the summers off. That was really important when Abe Lincoln was walking to school barefoot, he had to help his family. These kids, 99.9%, don’t and won’t do farming. I felt this way when still working if we’re really talking about effective education.

School boards, superintendents, state legislatures…. take a breath, after three hunker down, and keep this tradition alive.