How does a school superintendent decide to call a snow day? It may involve more than you realize.
Snow days in Sutton can be hard to call because of varying weather reports. When making the call, the goal is to give everyone as much notice as possible and make a decision the night before, but if the weather is not certain then the decision is made the following day.
The superintendent communicates with other schools in the same district to get their opinions on if a snow day should be called. She also talks to two groups of superintendents located around the Blackstone Valley and South Worcester county. There are about 11 or 12 superintendents in each group and they discuss the duration and timing of the snow expected.
A call to another superintendent is made usually around 4 AM to see if the roads are safe for transportation and another call for the police department and get an answer to see how difficult it would be for staff and students to get to school. There are not as many walkers in Sutton as other districts so it doesn’t go into as much consideration, but transportation is still an important topic for slippery roads.
The school year is set at 180 days in a school year, so every time there is a snow day another additional day is added to the end of the school year. Days being added at the end of the year can interfere with what could’ve been summer vacation, so the school tries to minimize the amount of snow days as much as possible and instead have delays if necessary.
An alternative to calling a snow days could be Zoom classes, but it’s difficult for grades K-2nd who do not take their Chromebooks home and then the day would count as absences for those students. There’s also no way to expect younger kids to be able to pay full attention over a Zoom call.
Snow days can be hard to call and opinions on calling them vary. I interviewed people and got some similar and different opinions on snow days.
The first question was how do they think administrative calls snow days and some people said the school calls the transportation department and others said the police.
The second question was would they rather have a snow day or do school over Zoom and some people said no Zoom because they would rather be playing outside and it would be harder for the younger kids because they could easily get distracted, and others said they would love a Zoom day.
The last question was choosing between having a snow day but another day added to the end of the school year or going to school for the day with a chance of a delay. Some said have a snow day no matter what and others said only have a snow day if the conditions are that bad, especially with students who drive themselves.
Between calling other districts, talking to the highway department, the police, and to the school’s maintenance department, there are multiple variables that go in to calling a snow day.
