On Thursday, Feb. 3,  winter storm Landon dropped 7.5 inches of snow over the course of two days. However, every snow day has its downsides, especially towards the curriculums that we follow.

“Some students are affected more than others by missing a day,” Superintendent Dr. Kyle Ramey said. “However a well-timed day off may even be helpful to a student.” 

A lot of students can agree with that sentiment especially, since we do not have delays or snow days often. This can change how we work while our region does get plenty of weather. The ability to walk to school has major benefits. It allows there to be less of a chance of getting set back work wise because of weather. 

“Since we live in Ohio and don’t often get the worst of the weather, when we do experience a snow day it should be treated as a catch up day,”  Emerson Long (11) said. “Where students are given the time that would otherwise be used for school, to either catch up on assignments or be provided with a day off for performing well in school.”

As of the 2021-2022 school year, snow days are not determined as days for students to engage in remote learning. This is a decision that students are definitely in favor of, with just under 90 percent saying no to remote learning on snow days in a survey. 

“While last year when the weather forced us to close school we did utilize Remote Learning Days to provide more consistent instruction following our major school closure in the spring of 2020,” Ramey said. “Our plan this year is for any weather-related closing to result in a traditional ‘snow day.”

Along with those big changes to how we go about snow days and remote learning, we often forget that we have to decide those snow days as well. 

“The decision includes multiple variables,” Ramey said. “The timing of the storm in relation to the start of school, temperature and wind chill factor, etc.”

Although the system is rather precise, it cannot be perfect and people make mistakes. This can happen when sidewalks and the grass ice over something that can’t be noticed on school grounds Along with that weather can also get worse throughout the day even with the sun out.

“Earlier this month there was a very icy morning which we easily could have had a 2 hour delay for.” Caterina Tiansvobodny (12) said. “I knew a lot of people said they slipped while walking or had problems with their cars that morning.” 

Something like that can happen, even when a plan was made in the best interest of the school.

Ramey said, “In spite of good advice and quality data, sometimes I make the wrong call – most of the time I am right but occasionally simply wrong.  But as you know, it eventually does come down to someone having to make the call and that is me.”