(You gotta) Fight for your right (to snow days!)
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Emily Beckman, a middle schooler at Discovery Canyon Campus (DCC) Middle School in Colorado Springs, listed the night-before rituals for potential snow day.
“Make sure to put something white by your windowsill, or flush ice cubes down the toilet, or my personal favorite, wear your pajamas backwards,” said Beckman, 12.
As a Colorado middle schooler, Emily Beckman is in the prime of her snow day years, when an evening of snow-packed storm clouds might precipitate a morning of sleeping in, hot cocoa and sledding.
Yet after the COVID-19 pandemic ushered virtual learning into schools across the country, many Colorado districts — including Emily Beckman’s Academy District 20 — have decided to replace some “traditional” snow days (snow days where school is cancelled completely) with “eLearning” days.
Appalled, Beckman decided to fight for her and her friends’ snow days, inspiring her now over 3,300-signature and internationally-recognized “Bring Back Snow Days in Academy School District 20” Change.org petition, which challenges a snowballing nationwide trend of shifting snow days to virtual learning days.
School districts from New York City to Wisconsin to Massachusetts are making similar changes, some plowing snow days to the side completely.
An EdWeek Research Center Survey from November 2020 reported that around 70% of principals and school district officials had converted or were considering converting snow days to remote learning days, made possible in part due to the pandemic-era use of online learning.
While most school districts in Colorado’s Front Range still institute traditional snow days, there have been a few, particularly in Colorado Springs, that are beginning to implement new policies.
Falcon District 49 was one of the first to introduce remote learning day replacements in 2018, and Colorado School District 11 and Academy District 20 discussed the use of remote learning in 2020.
Last year, a five-student “snow day committee” helped convince D11 leadership to reinstate the traditional snow day policy and removed the remote learning policy until “the district's remote learning effectiveness is perfected,” according to D11 administrators.
D20 assembled a “Calendar Task Force Committee” in June 2021 to solidify school year calendaring strategies including for the “instructional use of snow days/delayed starts and school start/end times.”
The report recommended building in two traditional snow days and five eLearning days for inclement weather, and then an additional one snow day and one eLearning day as needed.
Academy School District 20 (D20) is the largest school district in Colorado Springs, serving over 22% of students in the area. It includes about 40 schools, ranging from preschools to high schools, scattered across northern Colorado Springs.
The district’s current policy builds six “snow days” into the district calendar. The first two days cancelled due to inclement weather, which is decided by the D20 superintendent Jinger Haberer, become traditional snow days, and the four following cancellations are designated as eLearning days.
“There’s an expectation that students will log on to their device at about 9:30, will attend school for the rest of the day, will watch classes, will do homework problems and listen to lectures or whatever activity that teacher has for the day,” said Jeremy Beckman, an Air Academy High School math teacher and Emily’s father.
Jeremy Beckman worked as a math teacher at the DCC middle school for 11 years before moving to Air Academy, which is also in District 20. As both a teacher and a father, Jeremy Beckman said he has experienced some of the stresses that come with remote learning replacement days.
Because snow days (and eLearning days) typically aren’t called until the morning of, Jeremy Beckman said that there is little time for teacher preparation, and in turn fewer lessons that can effectively be taught in a virtual environment.
“So many students for one reason or another aren’t able to access technology, and especially in math, trying to make it productive and engage students in something meaningful is difficult,” said Jeremy Beckman.
“You end up kind of having to plan on going, ‘Okay, I’m going to catch up the next day.’”
Research on pandemic-era at-home learning show marked decreases in math and reading scores — most significantly in marginalized communities — due to insufficient access to necessary technology, lacking options for special education and social isolation.
According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office survey of educators during the 2020 — 2021 school year, about 60% of teachers reported their students having more difficulty understanding lessons online than in a typical year.
85% of in-person educators in the same study said that live instruction helped students.
Emily Beckman prefers in-person learning, and she cited the benefits of face-to-face interactions with teachers and classmates.
“It’s really hard for the teachers to communicate because it’s easy to get distracted in your own home,” said Emily Beckman.
She regularly deals with technological issues that affect her virtual classes, and because many students are instructed to keep their notebooks in class, Emily Beckman said she and others often are unable to take proper notes without their materials.
Sociological studies show that pandemic era virtual learning negatively impacted young students’ social-emotional wellbeing and learning as well, while snow days — and the social interactions that kids might enjoy during those days off — may instead provide lessons in social cognition, or social-behavioral health.
Another major sticking point for parents, according to what Emily and Jeremy Beckman learned through speaking with supporters, is the variability of end-of-school dates.
Because the district does not know how many snow days it will need to call in a given year, and because Academy District 20 requires “177 student contact days” in each school year, D20 must add or remove days accordingly from the end of the calendar.
For this reason, the official last-day-of-school often isn’t announced until the spring, sometimes as late as mid-May, according to Jeremy Beckman.
D20 has stated that by instituting remote learning days, they may be able to predict the end of the school year earlier because virtual learning days will count towards the 177-day requirement.
This foresight, according to the district, may help finish the year earlier in some instances since fewer make-up days will be required.
While an early summer break might sound like a positive to most, Emily and Jeremy Beckman said they’ve heard different opinions from some parents.
“When the district lets school out really early, it actually creates some stress on parents that rely on college students to be their coverage or their child care,” said Jeremy Beckman.
“A lot of college students don’t get back until the third or fourth week of May, so parents might not have options for child care if school gets out too early.”
Academy District 20 chief communication officer Mark Belcher said in an official statement that the inclusion of eLearning days “allows the district to predict the last day of school sooner,” and is “committed to regularly reviewing feedback and adapting to meet the needs of our students, staff, and community.”
Elementary schools are exempt from the eLearning policy and always follow traditional snow days.
Emily acknowledged these points and clarified that her petition still includes remote learning days, though asks that they be implemented only after the first six traditional snow days are exhausted.
The petition also asks that when the Air Force Academy closes base for inclement weather, “D20 follows suit.”
“How is it safe for children to go out and go to school if the Air Force people can’t?” said Emily Beckman.
Emily Beckman worked with her father to create the Change.org campaign to collect signatures for her cause.
Jeremy Beckman is “known for protests,” according to Emily Beckman. While working at DCC, he led a teacher “sickout” calling for reduced class sizes after it was announced that teachers would be responsible for 12 courses instead of 11.
While the class size reduction-movement failed, Jeremy Beckman said that teachers received bonuses over an extended period of time.
Jeremy Beckman said the snow day protest was entirely Emily’s idea and effort, who he added has her own history with “protesting.”
“In third grade, I did a protest against some boys that were being really aggressive during P.E.” said Emily Beckman.
She and her friends attached cardboard signs to hats and chanted for gentler pushing by the boys. In the end, her efforts were successful, and the boys agreed to soften up.
Emily Beckman also helped lead a anti-gun violence campaign in fourth grade, and she currently participates in speech and debate, one of her favorite after-school activities.
She addressed the Academy District 20 School Board in a December 12 meeting in which she laid out her plan and asked for an opportunity to speak with the administration.
Earlier in the same meeting, Superintendent Jinger Haberer announced that she was planning on meeting with students, and that D20 had recently released a district-wide survey asking the community to share their thoughts on the inclement weather plan.
The survey gives respondents the choice between keeping the current model, introducing the six snow-day model for middle and high schools or eliminating remote learning entirely.
It writes in bold text that the current model will result in a “predictable last day of school, likely during the third full week of May,” and the same but “likely during the fourth full week of May,” in the six snow day option.
All responses are due by December 23.
Emily Beckman plans on continuing to hand out snow day buttons, made by her and her friends, and share the petition link to as many people as possible. Her goal is to reach 5,000 signatures.
She is already looking ahead at her next movement as well, and is still deciding between protesting for better teacher pay or for DCC middle school to allow students to do book projects on The Hunger Games.
Regardless of whether or not her efforts are successful, Emily Beckman said that her protest was well worth the time and effort.
“Trying is better than just sitting back and doing nothing,” said Emily Beckman, “and if it works, then it makes you really happy that you know you caused a change.”