The anxious student awaiting the announcement of school cancellation on a snowy day may no longer be excited for the day off. Rather they will be unmotivated and upset with the fact that they still have to complete lessons assigned to them online by teachers. Many teachers are pushing for a new initiative that will allow them to upload lessons for students to complete on their own during snow days.

There is no doubt that Yorktown takes pride in its excellent academics, and both students and faculty will do whatever it takes to achieve this excellence. But is instituting online classes during a snow day taking it too far? There are days built into the year to allow for snow days so classes do not fall behind; there is no need to take away from the joy students feel when they have a snow day.

There have been many times during snowstorms when I have lost power and had no access to the internet, therefore if this becomes a new program, actually completing these lessons will be impossible.

Although many teachers feel that this will help with not falling behind in their classes, I do not think that they understand the full consequences of this new initiative.

It is understandable that some challenging or Advanced Placement classes cannot afford to fall behind as there is the AP test at the end of the year; however, it’s absurd to force students into completing online lessons during snow days. Not only will a large percentage of students be unmotivated or unwilling to give up their day off, but many students will be unable to access the internet, which these lessons are relying on. Although the freshmen have their own computers, there are still many upperclassmen who do not have internet access at home and rely on school or public computers which become unavailable during snow days. Along with that, many people lose power during snowstorms making these online classes unavailable to students.

These online classes are likely to cause some students fall behind where others have completed the lessons and only put the teachers more behind. Online classes during snow days are very likely to backfire. During a snow day, I know the last thing I want to be doing is school work, and starting the classes will only add more pressure to both students and faculty.