Crazy Weather Causes Big Problems
by Jesse Shuter
Staff Writer
The winter of 2014 has been one of the snowiest winters that I can remember. The interesting things is not just the frequency of the snow, but the pattern of the weather that we are receiving. Take this past week for example. On March twelfth the temperature had a high of around 68 degrees fahrenheit. The following day, March thirteenth, the high temperature was 32 degrees, but the temperature felt like 12 degrees.
This is just an example of the up and down temperatures that people living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and even the entire northern United States have been experiencing all through the 2014 winter.
The biggest toll that all of this snow is causing, is on students. There have been seven snow days this winter. SEVEN! That is outrageous, but perhaps what is more outrageous is the Philadelphia school districts lack of preparation for those snow days. The Philadelphia school district had allotted one extra school day, in case of a snow emergency. When the snow days started piling up they were faced with an issue. Where are these extra days of school going to fit in?
Instead of adding the snow days onto the end of the year, and keeping the students in school until July, they opted to take away days from spring break. These days include, April 15th, April 16th, and April 17th. Taking these days away has left many students feeling outraged, disappointed, and even cheated of their break from school. This leads me to wonder, what should the school district have done differently? It also caused me to wonder, assuming next year’s weather follows this year’s pattern, what should the school district do to better prepare for snow?
5 Steps to improve the Philly School District’s Snow Day Policy:
1. Start school earlier! The Philadelphia students started school later than most school this year which meant they’d be in school later than other students. This left little amount of time for the school district to operate with in case of lack of school days.
2. Operate under the assumption that there will be four snow days. Obviously four would not be enough for this year, but even if somehow there is seven or more snow days again next year (which hopefully there won’t be) it is easier to find three extra days than six.
3. Change the system from minimum days of school to minimum hours of school. If you operate using hours instead of days, it becomes easier to find ways to work the school day around so that no extra days need to be added, and the amount of school time is still met.
4. After changing the time system from days to hours (See Number 3),don’t take away spring break or add on school days, make the school day 15-20 minutes longer. Students would barely notice if they stay at stayed at school for an extra 15 minutes. Do you know what they do notice? When their spring break is taken away!
5. Do not announce a snow day the night before. This wasn’t just the school district, the Philadelphia courts also did this. The weather projected twelve inches of snow, and we ended up with barely one inch of snow. Schools that were smart waited until it actually started snowing (which was never) while the Philadelphia school district listened to the forecast and called for no school, despite having no proof. Instead, wait until the morning, yes maybe it will be inconvenient for some people that woke up expecting school and then realized they woke up for no reason, but do you know whats more inconvenient? When their spring break is taken away!
