Living in Sioux Falls South Dakota brings along freezing winters and substantial quantities of snow, which ultimately leads to snow days. Snow days can be beneficial but also detrimental for both students and teachers. They give mental and physical breaks to stressed students, but can also lead to missing out on important lessons and deadlines.

Because of all the snow days, students have to make up for the days lost at the end of the year, almost leaving them in school until June. Because of this, teachers in Sioux Falls were asked to fill out a survey, which consisted of the question if snow days should be virtual learning days. 

“The teachers were given a survey to complete giving their information about remote learning for the weather. They were all asked to give their input on this, which was in late April. Results came back that 76% of teachers favored remote learning from snow days, whereas 24% do not favor remote learning on snow days,” said LHS principal Dr. Laura Raeder. 

Ultimately, a group of teachers were put together to establish what virtual snow days will consist of and how they will work. Will remote learning be allowed every snow day? Should they just happen when there is a warning ahead of time? How would that work with all the grades in the district? (K-12). As the 2024 school year approaches, more information will be released.

Raeder predicts that there will still be some snow days because the days that would be virtual would need to be informed about before. In other words, the days that can be planned for. This is because remote learning days cannot necessarily be done when students do not have their devices available for them.

With virtual learning, students will not have to make up days at the end of the year; however, snow days will not be the same as they used to be. The whole idea of a snow day will change. Instead of a day off, there will be work to do.

“The snow days that we had five years ago are kind of gone,” said Raeder.