Online Snow Days
North Idaho often has icy roads and bad weather during the winter season, which can make it hard to get to school.
Lakeland School District prepared two built-in snow days for the 2022-2023 school year; however, the two snow days have already been used.
This leaves an ultimatum for the district on snowy days where it can be dangerous to get to school: take the risk of students driving the icy roads or having to make up the school days.
If Lakeland School District adopted the idea of doing online learning during snow days, then students would not have to make up the school days during their summer break.
During COVID, it was already learned that teachers could give their students work online.
If teachers were able to give their students work online during the days that are not safe to drive, there could be many student crashes.
Students also think it will be beneficial if snow days can be turned into online learning days.
“I live all the way out of town, so when it snows a lot, it can be really tricky to get to school. If I could still do my school work at home and not have to make it up in the future, then it could save a lot of time,” said Baylee Frank, a junior at LHS.
The safety of the students should be a priority, so making this decision should be a no-brainer.
Despite students liking the idea of online snow days, the administration believes that there is no need to take this precaution.
Unless there are snow days that happen consistently, administration feels that students should be able to enjoy their day.
“When I picture a snow day, I picture sleeping in, having hot chocolate and doing snow activities. No kid wants to wake up on a snow day and get on their computer to talk to their English teacher,” said Jimmy Hoffman, Interim Principal at Lakeland High School.
The school is not worried about a few snow days here and there affecting the students too much.
Hoffman also believes that online snow days would not be effective because not everyone will decide to participate.
If this winter is brutal, LHS should resort to online snow days to avoid interfering with summer break. Students look forward to the end of the school year, and it can be highly frustrating if that break is pushed back even further.
