Ever since the coronavirus hit the US, schools have had no choice but to go to school online, but now that we are back in person, that’s no longer an issue. However, there are still snow days that interrupt schooling.

Before the pandemic started, students would have no work to do whenever we had snow days. In the past, students could take a day for themselves, but since those snow days now involve school online, we can no longer take some time to relax or catch up on work.

Snow days used to allow our minds to get rest from stressful days at school. Now that snow days are really no longer a thing, given that schools have the knowledge of technology like Zoom, students can’t take a day off for their mental health. This leads students to overwork themselves. 

Switching from an in-person school to an online school only for a day or so can mess with how students organize their day for school. Many students are used to being in school so their brains are wired to process information orally and physically. However, now that our snow days involve online school, students have to switch to a totally different learning environment which many struggle with. For one, I know a student who got a 0.4 F at the end of last year’s first semester just because it was their first time going to school online.

In this learning environment students often procrastinate doing their work because without teachers there’s less of an urgency to do it. It seems like there’s less of an obligation to do work for online school since it can feel like you’re getting a ton of homework. In my experience, this leads to students not putting as much effort or none at all into their schoolwork when it’s online.

Many students sometimes looked up answers for tests or assignments to get higher grades. On the other hand, some students have a lot of anxiety about their grades in school and when they can’t adapt to learning online, that causes even more stress. According to the Kentucky Counseling Center, distractions at home and not following a routine have caused students not to be able to concentrate in their classes, which leads to procrastination, and deadlines being missed. 

Ultimately, schools shouldn’t implement online school whenever there are snow days. 

Having a snow day that consists of schoolwork doesn’t allow students to get a mental health break from school like snow days have done in the past. Switching from in-person to online classes for a day or so can mess with how students organize their school day and they have to adapt to a totally different learning environment.