Since Jan. 1, roughly a dozen major winter storms have shuttered school doors around the United States and kept students home.
Before COVID-19, snow days like these were routine, not even worth mentioning. But with the switch to virtual schooling came predictions that days off from school because of weather would soon be a thing of the past. There would be no reason to cancel classes if they could just go remote. An EdWeek survey from November 2020 even reported that around 70% of principals and school district officials had converted or were considering converting snow days to remote learning days.
But a 74 survey of policies around the country finds that while some districts have made the shift — or tried to — others have gone back to that time-honored tradition.
