As winter approaches in Evanston, ETHS continues to follow its established policies and procedures to navigate severe weather conditions, including heavy snow.
“Our goal is to keep school open whenever it is safe to do so,” states the school website. “We carefully review all information available before making a decision and do our best to communicate with families as early as possible.”
Many factors influence the decision to have students learn from home or attend school in person, including weather forecasts for heavy snow, ice or extreme cold. ETHS ensures student safety by maintaining sidewalk safety patrol for those who walk, drive or take public transportation and by checking heating and power systems throughout the school.
After considering all of these factors, the administration decides whether the next day will be an e-learning day, a late start or an early dismissal. They then notify students and families through phone calls, emails, text messages, the ETHS website and social media and local news outlets.
In recent years, e-learning has become an important part of snow day planning. It allows students to continue their schoolwork without adding extra make-up days to the end of the year, ensuring the day still counts toward attendance. e-learning also helps teachers stay on track with their lesson plans.
“There is no true replacement for in-person instruction, but the positive of an e-learning day on a snow day is not missing all of that instruction,” said teacher Panagoula Bekiaris.
Teachers play a key role on snow days, often adapting their lessons for e-learning in the morning before school begins.
“Figuring out how to adapt the lesson plan for the day or creating something completely different if my original plan can’t work digitally can be difficult,” said Bekiaris. “On top of that, teachers typically teach two to three different classes, and different blocks of the same class can be doing different things.”
Many students value the opportunity to catch up on work and enjoy a break that an e-learning day provides.
“It’s really nice not having to go to school when there is a lot of snow,” said junior Frannie Fairman. “I’m able to get more sleep and do asynchronous work, which prevents extra days of school from being added in May.”
Although snow days have evolved over the years, they still evoke nostalgia for students and teachers. Whether the replacement for the traditional snow day is an improvement remains debatable.
“I miss the nostalgia that went with the traditional snow day: watching the news for the list of school closures, waking up to an alert from school, spending the day playing in the snow, drinking cocoa and watching cozy winter movies,” said Bekiaris.
