As Alexandria prepares for a high-impact winter storm this coming weekend, student anticipation of school closure is high. However, due to the ACPS inclement weather policy, traditional snow days may be a thing of the past.
According to the ACPS website, “staff and families should be prepared for virtual synchronous learning for students in grades three to 12 when we have a school closure due to inclement weather.” The website also states that this policy is “due to the school year calendar not allowing for any traditional snow days.”
Going forward, students will be required to log on to their computers from home, either for “synchronous” learning, which requires students to join zooms, or “asynchronous” learning, where students complete classwork independently. ACPS said in an interview that this decision can be made on a “case-by-case basis” for different schools and “within constraints faced in specific school year calendars.”
Many ACHS students are mourning the loss of traditional snow days. “I don’t really want to do synchronous every single day,” said junior Harper Owens. “I’d rather be outside or be doing something fun.”
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” said senior Willem Shultz in response to the policy.
While many students are sad about the loss, some understand the reasoning behind it. “I don’t love that we have to go to school on snow days, but I also don’t love it when they shrink our summer further. So mixed feelings on it,” said junior Ingrid Schildknecht.
In preparation for the possibility of synchronous learning, ACHS teachers have been instructed to conduct class via zoom, but not to assign ‘new’ work. This is to account for students who may lose power or have other responsibilities.
“I do think that’s fair and reasonable for equity reasons,” said science teacher Laura Simons. “For many students, staying caught up with any new material that’s done through synchronous learning is going to be a challenge.”
However, this poses a challenge for certain classes.
“Higher level advanced classes like AP [and SOL] classes do have a curriculum they have to get through,” said Simons. “So it definitely is a challenge now, having lost a lot of in person time to be able to finish everything we have to finish by the testing in the spring.”
The advantage of synchronous and asynchronous days is debatable among students and staff, especially since they don’t include new coursework.
“It’s kind of pointless,” said Schildknecht. “You’re blocking out pieces of your day to do nothing.
“I usually don’t do the schoolwork on these synchronous days, so, yeah, they’re just not really good,” said Shultz. “I think they’re kind of a waste of everyone’s time.”
“A lot of students are really good students, and they use this time to get caught up and do extra practice,” said Simons. “There will also be students who are going to take this time as a traditional snow day and go play in the snow, and that’s probably okay too.”
