Snow days, they may be over...or not?
“A winter storm is coming.” Those are the words that had us all grinning from ear to ear as children. Waking up the next morning, turning on the local news channel, and holding your breathe as you hopeto see if your school was closed. Or perhaps you decided to sleep in and not set your alarm because you had a little faith that school would be closed due to the winter storm.
Passaic County Community College gave students the day off on February 1 st due to the snow storm. In person classes were canceled, and the biggest surprise of them all, remote classes canceled too. One would think that due to Covid the school would just switch all classes to remote. However that was not the case.
On Sunday January 31 st a Panther Alert was sent out to notify students that the school would be closed the next day due to the winter storm. Naturally I assumed that all my classes would still be happening since they are remote and not in person.
My Psychology professor Dr. Lonna Murphy, informed the class that a dean sent out an email to the faculty to clarify that all classes were indeed canceled on February 1 st.
The next day the school sent out a press release stating that they would return remotely.
“Passaic County Community College will operate remotely on Tuesday, Feb. 2 because of the weather forecast for the region. All in person classes and activities have been switched to remote. All remote and online classes will meet as scheduled. Staff should work from home except for essential Public Safety and Facilities as directed by their supervisors. All other online services will be available.”
On February 4 th the school officially re-opened.
The big question is, was it a good idea to give students the day off? Students have been working very hard and as a result of virtual learning have had no breaks. If the school decided to stay open during the snowstorm and switch all classes to remote, then students would not have the luxury of getting a snow day.
Before Covid a snow storm like last Monday’s would have had every school, college, and business across the east coast canceled. However, because of Covid we all learned to work and go to school remotely from home. Giving the students the day off was the best thing to do because it gave us a sense of some normalcy during all this Covid chaos.
A lot of students are tired and missing what school was like before the pandemic. Having a snow day gave students the memory of what school was like prior to Covid nearly a year ago.
Much respect to PCCC for giving us all the day off.