Wayland Schools Discuss Snow Day Plan

More often than not, the forecast called for snow this past winter. The record-breaking snow season left superintendents of schools sitting awake late, wondering if they should make the call to cancel classes. Kids watched for cancelation texts and announcements, ready to cheer for another snow day in their town or city.

Some school districts that were particularly hammered with days off because of the blizzards are scrambling to find solutions so the classes don’t wind into mid-June. Braintree, Ayer-Shirley and Salem, for instance, are finding ways to petition the 180-day rule, or shedding days off vacation time, reported the Boston Globe.

Wayland, which only used four snow days and one delay, made it out easier than many districts. Wayland’s last day of school this year is June 22. But the snow-drenched season inspired some, including Wayland, to take a look at how to deal with these days off in the future.

There is a lot of talk about employing “blizzard bag” days, which is essentially the idea where assignments can be sent home with students in anticipation of a snow day.

In Wayland, school officials are talking about the idea of a more technology-based “blizzard bag.”

“What a lot of towns are trying to do, especially those with a lot of snow days, is create these ‘blizzard bag days,’” said Paul Stein, Wayland’s superintendent of schools. We’re at the discussion stage, but a group of teachers became aware of this and they met a couple of times. They are talking about next year, when the snow day happens, and we’re very unlikely to call it a ‘blizzard bag day.’ Our emphasis would be to use technology that all students have that they could access information.”

Stein said a committee in Wayland has met a few times to discuss how to approach the snow day “schooling.”

The idea is that students would receive an assignment via email that is connected to the curriculum, an effort to keep the momentum of the class.

“It would very much be using technology,” said Stein. “It’s not just things sitting in a bag that you can pull out any time. That is what used to be called a ‘substitute plan.’ It’s a way where we could do this right it would be a way to address the concern of the disruptions to learning when you have gaps. You have a whole bunch of snow days and it’s hard to get the momentum up, and the idea would be to keep the momentum going. It’s not about the number of days; you still have to do the 180 days no matter how you look at it.”

Stein stressed that while media outlets have reported that Wayland is considering the “blizzard bag,” that the school is very much in the beginning stage of even discussing the issue. And reiterates that it wouldn’t be called “blizzard bag.”

“The committee is working on it, and then we have to run it by the school committee,” he said.

While some school districts are implementing a version of the “blizzard bag” that works as extra work to reverse some of the snow days that happened this year, Wayland is considering the plan for the future to replace the snow days. It would be implemented at all grade levels. 

“The kids would have the assignment online,” he said. “We’re talking about the snow day where kids have to do the assignment that day. It’s a little different take than other districts; they’re trying to do something for this school year, and I give them a lot of credit for it. Districts need to find different versions, so we can come up with something that works for all of us. We’re not talking about taking away all the snow days in New England. This is about finding a balance between snow days being those playful days and not getting to a point where it’s an annoyance and having to go to school way into June. This is new territory.”

What do you think about the possible plan to have school work at home on snow days to negate extending the school year? What do your kids think about it?