Teacher Talk Tuesday – School Snow Days

Hello!

‘Tis the season for winter weather! In the past few weeks, we’ve had a little bit of everything – ice, sleet, snow, and frigid temps. Today and tomorrow are to be the coldest days of winter so far.

All of the snow days got me thinking about snow days through the years!

When I was a kid I don’t really remember having tons of snow days, and I also don’t remember how we were notified. My mom was a teacher, so I’m sure she would find out and let us know. I assume those snow days were reported on the news and would run across the bottom of the screen….I do remember that in high school.

My first year teaching, there was a school phone tree, and I did get a few phone calls for snow days, and then I’d call the next number on the list!

When I moved to Kentucky, my first year here was the 2004-2005 school year, and we didn’t have a snow day until late February or early March. I remember asking Travis if it snowed here! haha

For most of my earlier years in Kentucky, we’d get an automated phone call and probably an email. For twelve years, I taught in a more rural county, and we would miss more days than the city schools like Lexington where we live. I do remember waking up some mornings and checking the local news to see if we had school or not.

We would also rarely have those days forgiven and would have to make them up. In 2014, we had probably fifteen snow days. To alleviate some of the time we’d have to make up, we added twenty minutes to the school day after spring break. The students made up a couple of days at the end, but the teachers were in school until mid-June! No ma’am! I remember being so annoyed…making up our time for two weeks after the students got out.

The following year, my district applied for NTI (non-traditional instruction) days. This was kind of a new idea although there were even more rural/mountain towns who had been using NTI. For NTI, we gave out packets with ten days worth of work. At this time, students didn’t have Chromebooks. So, students knew to complete the assignment(s) on the days we had off. Once we returned to school, students had three days to complete and turn in the assignment for their attendance to be counted for those NTI days. Honestly, it worked fairly well, and even like what I do now, I incorporated grammar, short reading comprehension passages, etc. So, it was work we would have done in class anyway, but I saved it for NTI. On those NTI days, we were expected to work from home, and we’d fill out a time sheet with what we worked on.

It’s crazy to think out “antiquated” this process seems compared to what we do now although there are still some similarities.

In my county, NTI days started after Covid. We truly never thought we’d ever be 1:1 with technology with the number of students we have in our district and the various demographics that we have of our student populations. During Covid, our county was out for almost a year, so we all became very acclimated with Zoom and online assignments.

Not only do these kids not have to wait for the school name to scroll on the bottom of the TV screen (although it still does when we don’t have school), they can also find out via social media, sometimes quicker than I know!

As parents, we get a text message and an email…sometimes, we receive a phone call. I hate the phone calls at 5 am! As teachers, we get an email and a text.

For NTI now, we post assignments to Canvas, and have two hours where we are expected to be on Zoom in case a student has a question or needs help with their work. The district assigned the time frames and elementary have earlier Zoom hours, middle school is around lunch and high school have the later afternoon shift.

I take attendance based on who has completed the assignment by the end of the day. If a student turns in the assignment the following day, I will change their attendance from absent to present. Once we get back to school, students have three days to turn in the assignment just like how we did at my former district.

I assign work similarly to how I did when students had packets, but now I use IXL to assign grammar and Newsela to assign reading passages. I will also assign videos that have to do with what we’re learning and have students complete a 3-2-1 (which varies)assignment. For example, they will submit three facts from the videos, two questions they have and make one connection.

Last week, when we finally went back to school on Thursday, I did start class as if it was the first day of the semester. We went over classroom expectations, but then I gave them a work day on the three NTI assignments. I found that about 90% of my students completed their first NTI assignment the day it was assigned, but then that dwindled to about 50% of students completing the third NTI assignment. Since we hadn’t had in person school in almost a month, I figured we could all ease into the semester.

That being said, I did tell my classes now that we’ve discussed NTI expectations, if we’re out one day, then I’m not giving them a work day when we return. If we’re out an extended amount of time, that’s different.

I also told my students if we’re out this week, we have to wrap up To Kill a Mockingbird, so I’ll upload the PDF of the chapters we need to read and give them an assignment.

I feel like what we make up year to year is different. I do think my district goes five days more than we need to, so students don’t always have to make up every day. We have a day in March that’s always marked as a day to use if needed. Before NTI, we also would add days to the end of the school year, but I hope that’s not the case this year.

If the governor declares a state of emergency, which he did after our recent snow/ice storm, we can apply for up to ten days to forgive.

That being said, of course, teachers have to make up their work days. Often times, we’re able to “flex” our time if it’s just a few days. We fill out the flex form with any work/meetings that we do outside of our contract hours. My former district didn’t do that, but I appreciate that my district does have that as an option for at least a few days.

Once winter is over, the school board makes these decisions for students and for teachers.

Unpopular opinion — but I love a snow day…but I also love to get back into a routine…which has proven hard to do lately! There hasn’t been a school year in my teaching career that we haven’t had a least one snow day.

Stay warm!