Here in Providence, Rhode Island, my kids are thoroughly enjoying a second consecutive snow day. So: no school, which explains both the excellent snow shoveling assistance they provided this morning and their current state, curled up on the couch watching Harry Potter movies.
Public schools are required by their states to complete a minimum number of days per school year–generally around 180. This can be understood as a sum total of hours of instruction, which allows some flexibility. The practice around here–and in general–is to tack on missing days at the end of the school year. Downsides to this practice abound. Student attendance tends to drop off sharply because summer jobs, camp, and family plans take precedence. Those last few added-on days also tend to be less educationally significant that most that went before. Many districts aren’t able to move graduations or final exams, thus rendering those last few make-up days particularly useless.
As a result, and in recognition of the reality of changing climate patters that are likely to bring us many more snow days in the years to come, schools are shifting to alternatives to avoid extending the school year beyond its planned conclusion. These options include:
At-home online learning on snow (or other weather-forced) days
Depending on the school and district, this means that teachers will assign reading and homework via existing online systems or pre-planned offline work, and they make themselves available by phone, video chat, or text, to engage students and answer questions. Students and their parents know that the day away from school isn’t a day off, and therefore doesn’t add to the school year in June.
Upside: Teaching and learning don’t lose momentum. Students stay engaged and can enjoy an alternate, perhaps more independent mode of learning. And the school year doesn’t creep later and later into the summer.
Downside: Though access to online modes of learning and school-student-family communication is increasingly universally available, in many districts–including the Providence Public Schools, where my kids attend school–some families don’t have online access or computers set up for kids to work at home. Until all kids can access online learning systems, requiring participation is unworkable.
Using scheduled vacation days
During difficult winters such as the snowpocalypse of 2015, some school districts chose to convert school vacation days to school days.
Upside: Getting those school days in during the conventional school year.
Downside: Districts that attempted this found that student attendance was low. It’s a lot to ask of families, educators, and school staff members who have vacations scheduled.
Increasing the length of school days to make up lost time
Adding 15 or 30 minutes per day before and/or after school can help schools make up a day or two.
Upside: Nice to not have to make up those lost days, and to support teaching and learning at school.
Downside: Not feasible in districts with interdependent bus schedules, student use of public transportation, neighborhood-based afterschool activities, afterschool sports, etc. Adding minutes to school days also would be tricky to pull off in districts with teachers’ unions (which is most of them), and for good reasons. Changing the length of school days would require a vote by the union membership to agree to change their agreed-upon working conditions.
Make-up days on Saturday(s)
Yes, you read that correctly. It’s been tried once in a while, and some districts still consider it an option.
Upside: Hard pressed to name one, other than the need not to make up days in June.
Downside: Generally not feasible due to change in working conditions for teachers and school building staff members, not to mention significant changes for families, so much so that smart money would be on very low student attendance.
Or let’s think about other ways to make teaching and learning happen
All of the above options are predicated on the assumption that students and teachers must be in community at school for 180-ish days to get their jobs done, and that if they’re not there together, in that building, with teachers directing students, learning doesn’t happen. In competency- or proficiency-based systems, for example, seat time in school is no longer the determining factor of achievement. Learning can and should happen whether or not students are at school, thus minimizing the impacts both of missed days and also the inevitable slog of make-up days tacked on to the end of the year.
Such student-driven learning systems also make both missed days and additional days more relevant. Students who are working toward proficiency in a particular subject are more likely to be motivated to get there, even if a blizzard cancels school. They’re also more likely to make the most of those last few days of school–again, because proficiency is measured not by time spent in a classroom seat but by actual achievement as measured by standards, many students will benefit from whatever extra days they can get, and learning matters no matter when it happens.