Since remote learning commenced last year, many schools are considering having students log on to class remotely on snow days. 

Each year, students and teachers have been wishing for snow days whenever there is snow on the weather forecast. Snow days have become so routine to students that the idea of remote learning on these days has struck students by surprise.  

Hamilton Wenham students and teachers have been waiting anxiously for the administration to make their decision. And while it is uncertain whether or not students have a say in this, here are some of their thoughts.

Many students, like Whitney Fitzgibbons (‘25), want old-fashioned snow days to continue as they have been. “It should just be no school, it’s always been like that.” Fitzgibbons is a freshman at Hamilton Wenham High School and is strongly committed to the idea of classic snow days. “Adults are always telling us that we don’t wanna make it up in June, but who cares. We’ve gone through so many days of school, so how does one extra day matter?”

Other students, however, have contradictory opinions towards the idea. Students like Julia Bial are confident in remote learning, “I would rather do remote learning because the summer is my favorite time of the year. I would rather spend my summer doing what I like rather than at school.” Bial, also a freshman attending Hamilton Wenham High School, believes that remote learning days will be better for a snow day. “I probably have less motivation when I’m doing school online, but it’s better than doing work in the summer.”

Many teachers also have strong opinions about it. Teachers are divided on whether they want to conduct a class online on a snow day or spend a day in June with the class.  

The mandarin teacher, Jing Che, felt confident in the decision of remote snow days, “It’s pretty challenging to get students’ attention because they are not in front of you.” Che admits she was not very fond of remote learning the past 2 years. “But, I can find new ways to teach the students.” Che adds.

She would prefer to have remote learning on a snow day even though she wasn’t the biggest fan. 

“I really want our summer vacation to start sooner. The whole school year makes everyone so tired, we don’t want to make up days at that time in the summer.” Che also believes that this could be a good reminder of what school was like last year. 

Our principal, Bryan Menegoni, admitted that students will not have a say in what will happen. “There’s good and bad about remote learning. But we’ve had years where we’ve had 10-12 snow days, and school goes until June 26, which is where it would make sense.”

Since public schools in Massachusetts are not permitted to do remote learning at this time, our snow days will remain the same this year. But in future years, the idea of remote learning on a stormy day may be introduced.