With the advent of online schooling technology Should there be snow days?

[Xing]

How exactly would teachers be expected to construct an online lesson for all of their classes on the fly (or with several hours notice?) Online teaching is far from ideal when we get time to plan out our lessons, but short of making online lessons basically random filler (in which case, what's the point?), asking us to suddenly have to make an online version of our planned lessons for several different classes is a lot, and would end up being very chaotic.

The debate about summer vacation is interesting, and perhaps better addressed in another thread, but while I agree that students need leisure time, the amount that many students forget over summer is a real concern and a major setback. I wonder if we'd be better off keeping the 180 day school year, but having three "mid-length" breaks (4-6 weeks), one in the spring, one in the summer, and one that would link Thanksgiving and winter break into one longer break, with optional programs similar to summer camp for students to reinforce learning. That would avoid a break so long that students forget a substantial amount, and also reduce the amount of burnout everyone feels this time of year.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I cannot imagine a normal, sane person looking back at the past year and thinking that mass online schooling is anything but a necessary evil in extraordinarily circumstances.

(FWIW, growing up we had a number of allotted snow days, and if we ever went over the extra ones would be tacked onto the end of the school year.)

[S019]

No (not a child)

No, and there shouldn't be summer vacation either.

School should be year round.

Do you honestly think that’s good for the well being of students or are you just seeking attention by being as dramatic as possible?

This would absolutely improve their academic standing.

That’s...questionable, plus taking away leisure time from children and not allowing them to spend extended time with their families can be quite damaging to mental health. Focusing on school work all year, all the time, ignores that fact that these are children, not robots, and they need time away and time to unwind.  For all the time that summer vacation has existed, the majority of children have done just fine with it. There is not some massive crisis in academic performance that would be solved by taking away vacation days, (In the 2017-18 school year, the High School graduation rate was 85 percent), and for children who are struggling, there are numerous ways to assist them without ending vacation, (More summer homework is a good choice, for starters).

On top of this, ending it would put more stress on school budgets. More funds would have to be towards paying the salaries of teachers who would be sacrificing their leisure time as well for this nonsense. There would also be non-salary costs to pay, like teacher benefits, administrator compensation, and facilities costs. Plus the AC costs would just be massive, especially on states with a hotter climate. Summer vacation is good for the school as well, as it saves schools money, period. Thankfully, proposals like this have no chance of becoming reality.

I do support summer vacation, however the fact that kids do lose a lot of knowledge over the summer is common knowledge. Rather than eliminating summer vacation, requiring schools to give out summer assignments is probably the better solution, or maybe even require them to like one page of a 10 page packet each week or something, so they aren't cramming the last day before school opens and doing it for the sake of getting it finished. Also I'm not as opposed to online school as some others, and think it's a fine replacement for snow days. Online schooling is not going away as much as many of you want it to, we now have created a new revolutionary form of education, expect it to be utilized in the future, especially as our world becomes even more digital.

[KaiserDave]

Obviously yes. I am not evil and I do not hate children, puppies, or fun. Online school is a necessary evil and even then it's complex.