After multiple years of disappearing snow days, the city’s mayor had announced this winter that any school closure caused by heavy snow will be replaced with a remote learning day causing a debate among students, teachers, and faculty about whether the tradition of playing in the snow belongs in the past or should be swapped for a day on Zoom.
For a long time, snow days meant a break from school where kids can go play outside or just relax at home. However, that tradition has officially changed. Now, the city says we have to do remote learning on Zoom. While the DOE probably thinks this keeps students learning, a lot of people at our school aren’t happy about it. Teachers and students are arguing that logging onto Zoom is chaotic and doesn’t actually teach us anything, making everyone miss a real snow day.
NYC Public Schools have implemented remote learning on a snow day since it introduced the no snow day policy in 2022, using the remote learning systems developed during the pandemic. In February 2024, the city tried its first remote snow day, but it was a disaster. According to NBC News, Schools Chancellor David Banks admitted that the city failed the remote learning test because of major technical issues. IBM, the company responsible for the system, was “not ready for prime time,” and thousands of students couldn’t even log in.
City officials say they are trying to fix those mistakes this year. According to Chalkbeat, Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently apologized to students who were hoping for a traditional snow day this year on January 23rd, explaining that the city has no flexibility in its calendar to cancel instructional days.
“I have to apologize to the students that we’re hoping for a different answer for a traditional snow day,” Mamdani said during a press briefing.
The Chancellor, Kamar Samuels tried to reassure families, saying that schools will be flexible and that students don’t have to be stuck on a screen all day.
“No one is asking kids to be on a device for six hours and 20 minutes,” Samuels said. “Some learning will be synchronous. Some will be asynchronous. You can still have your hot chocolate, you can still go out and enjoy the snow.”
Even when technology does work, data shows that remote days might not help students learn. A report by Chalkbeat in 2014 highlighted a study that found that snow days actually don’t hurt test scores. The research suggests that it’s better to cancel school rather than to try and teach when attendance and student engagement is low.
Teachers at our school agree that remote days are a struggle. Ms. Haritos , math teacher, believes that the change has made her teaching less effective.
“I wouldn’t say that I am managing students but I would say it certainly lessens the effectiveness of my teaching. The interpersonal connections are missing and it’s hard to gauge student understanding when I cannot see their eyes and expressions,” Ms. Haritos said. “Teaching is dynamic and organic and a lesson develops according to how the class responds, and that is hard to do when on zoom.”
During the last remote day, student engagement was not ideal. According to Ms. Haritos , many students had their cameras and mics off. She said it was hard to manage the chat while trying to teach at the same time. Ms. Haritos believes these days are mostly just about complying with the rules rather than actually teaching. She mentioned that most teachers planned to re-teach the lessons later.
Students also felt that remote days were pointless. Mahabir Ahmed, a Junior at Thomas Edison High School, felt that remote lessons just don’t work for him personally and he would have preferred a real snow day.
Being at home creates a difficult environment for focusing. Mahabir explained that his house was loud because his little brother was on his own Zoom call and his dad was working in the kitchen.
Due to distractions and technical issues, the actual Zoom classes felt silent. Ahmed said that almost nobody turned their cameras on, and most people just used the chat if they talked at all. This made the lesson hard to follow, and he felt lost the next day.
“Everyone just logged in or gave up trying when they weren’t able to log in due to technical issues. Almost everybody just kept their cameras off and everyone just talked in chat, nobody talked through their mic,” Mahabir said.
Aside from the struggles of remote learning, students are also missing out on the actual memories of a snow day. Mahabir remembers the 2017 Blizzard as a perfect day to play outside with friends.
“During the 2017 Blizzard, I remember me and my friends having a huge snowball fight while we played throughout the whole day. I feel like that type of magical day is a once in a lifetime experience people are able to enjoy without having to worry about joining a zoom class or turning in an assignment,” Mahabir said.
With the new policy, it looked like the magic of snow days is gone; instead of a break, students now just have to deal with a chaotic day of logging in and trying to focus.
Students were grateful for the “real snow day” that was granted on February 23rd and the opportunity to enjoy the snow instead of having to stay online, though many were hoping for remote on February 24th.
