School makeup days aka "snow days" do they really help make up for lost education or a waste of time? (county, middle school)

[citizensadvocate]

For many school systems around the US, days lost due to weather is often a hot topic. As in many states school districts are expected to make up every day lost for pretty much any reason including force majure unless its within the buffer build into the districts calendar already. I always wonder are they really making up any lost education with their makeup day policy. Many times the makeup day happens to be in another semester, trimester, or quarter. i.e days lost in December or January being made up February or beyond by garnishing in service days, half days, spring break, and sometimes even legal holidays(i.e MLKJ day, Presidents day, Memorial Day) and weekends and or having schools stay open till very late in June well after the scheduled finals and graduation. This year in particular as this winter was a harsh one that cancelled schools repeadly through out the country.

Schools in California, where I grew up, seems to be exempt from the makeup day issue. Interesting while its true that with CA schools most do not contend with snow closures every year they do close from time to time due to smoke from wildfires(San Diego school districts were closed for weeks one year due to fires) and other severe weather including severe winds and flooding rains of some storm systems and the occasional earthquake, not to mention the once in a blue moon freak low elevation snowfall. I did a little research and found out that in 1990 CA department of education passed Education code 41422 which authorizes credits for days when schools must be closed due to extraordinary circumstances. This includes the all of the above emergency situations including the freak low elevation snow days.

I am surprised even though there are many bad decisions in the state of California this seems to be a great decision. I bet there are other states with similar rulings. I am surprised California's ruling is more of the exception than the norm. As it is not the case with CA's neighbor Nevada as Las Vegas needed to make up the once in three decades "snow day" a few years ago.

So what do you think, should the rest of country follow CA's example and abandon make up days for emergency school cancellations or should we just have a better plan for making up lost education due to the unexpected disruption?

[flyonpa]

When I lived outside Atlanta, The school distinct did "Cyber" school days.

Each teacher had assignments in their Class Portal, Students had 7 day (From when school reopened), To Complete the assignments, If they completed them , they were counted as being "In Class that day".

Teachers had Cyber Office Hours where they could interface with students, thru a private and group Chat rooms.

99% of the student has internet access, so most of the assignments could be done online and "Handed" in Digitally.

Students/Families who did not have computers/internet could do the assignments on Paper,

Just about all 6-12 grader who did not have computer/internet were provided with a used computer, or Chromebook. Comcast provided "Free" internet access to those devices thru XFINITY WiFi hotspots, GeoMaping of the County showed just about everyone was within the range of a hotspot.

"Free" Internet: County used Federal Funds thru LifeLine Program. To Fund it, Its been a number of years, Since I last checked it, but Comcast got ~$5 PerDevice (Mac Address) to pay them for the limited Internet Service. So around $1000/Year to Pay for the Internet Service,

The Used Computer were School, County Government, Local Business computers that had there $1 end of Least buy out. IT employees at local Companies, would Test the "Used" computer, Clean them, Re-image them to be Student Use computers. Generally Middle School Students got Desktops, HS got Laptops. Some Students got ChromeBook (both New and Used - HS) , The Computers/ChromeBooks were students to keep. There was a two computer limit to be issued over the 6-12 grade time period, If the computer failed for non/abuse, lost etc reasons, They would be replaced.

[OptimusPrime69]

Growing up in Miami we had "hurricane days" when schools would be closed the day before an impending hurricane and depending on the damage from the storm...several days after as well. We usually didn't end up physically making up the days by taking away from other holidays or our Summer break, but we would have to do some type of extra online work..... usually easy stuff like reading a few chapters of a book, etc... And the truth is.... I never actually did any of the online stuff for make-up. It was just busy work IMO.

[wiscokay]

I grew up in South Dakota and we had several snow days. Some years we'd have none and others we'd have several. We always made them up at the end of the school year (1 day was built in). The most I remember having to make up was 2 weeks. As for days missed in different quarters/semesters, if they needed to, they would just push the end of semester 1 back a week in January.

[snoopygirlmi]

Here in Michigan, each district is allowed a certain number of snow days before they have to make them up.

It's very rare (in my area) that we have to make up time for missing school.

However, it may be different on the West Side and the UP as they get more snow than we do here in SE Michigan.

The one time that my son's school district had to actually "make up a school day" - they rescheduled a teacher in-service day. So the end date for the school year was still the same.

It really wasn't a big deal. The system works the way that it's supposed to. There's really not a reason to change it.

In fact, a lot of people here (in the midwest) would probably resist the whole idea of getting credit for not doing the work (and not putting in the time in the classroom).

If that's what CA wants to do, fine.

Yeah - it sucks to rearrange your schedule, but life isn't always going to go the way you expect it to. Having the wind storm a few weeks ago wasn't fun, but guess what - we still had plenty of days built into the system and all of it was just an inconvenience. Everyone got back to school and back on track. No vacation's canceled or in-services moved or anything like that. The attitude is "this is just what happens in the winter".

We get "weather" here and we plan for it.

California has different weather, so they don't make the same plans we do.

So what? It's really okay for other places to do things differently than California. Geez.

[snoopygirlmi]

Also, it doesn't really matter if we think they are a waste of time or effort because most states have mandates about how many days a kid has to be in school.

In Michigan, that number is 180.

So - the district gets into trouble if they aren't teaching kids for 180 days.

It's not just about whether or not families or kids think that these rules suck. There are actual reasons why make up days exist in the first place.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by flyonpa

When I lived outside Atlanta, The school distinct did "Cyber" school days.

Each teacher had assignments in their Class Portal, Students had 7 day (From when school reopened), To Complete the assignments, If they completed them , they were counted as being "In Class that day".

Teachers had Cyber Office Hours where they could interface with students, thru a private and group Chat rooms.

99% of the student has internet access, so most of the assignments could be done online and "Handed" in Digitally.

Students/Families who did not have computers/internet could do the assignments on Paper,

Just about all 6-12 grader who did not have computer/internet were provided with a used computer, or Chromebook. Comcast provided "Free" internet access to those devices thru XFINITY WiFi hotspots, GeoMaping of the County showed just about everyone was within the range of a hotspot.

"Free" Internet: County used Federal Funds thru LifeLine Program. To Fund it, Its been a number of years, Since I last checked it, but Comcast got ~$5 PerDevice (Mac Address) to pay them for the limited Internet Service. So around $1000/Year to Pay for the Internet Service,

The Used Computer were School, County Government, Local Business computers that had there $1 end of Least buy out. IT employees at local Companies, would Test the "Used" computer, Clean them, Re-image them to be Student Use computers. Generally Middle School Students got Desktops, HS got Laptops. Some Students got ChromeBook (both New and Used - HS) , The Computers/ChromeBooks were students to keep. There was a two computer limit to be issued over the 6-12 grade time period, If the computer failed for non/abuse, lost etc reasons, They would be replaced.

Shows how quickly how much things change. I graduated just 7 years ago and we didn't do any of that.

The snow make up days worked pretty well I'd say. It kinda screws up the scheduling but you still get the work in. By the time the make up day came, you never realized that day was originally a holiday.

[annie_himself]

We had hurricanes and we had to make them up, you don't learn much in school anyway so no it's not worth it. Waste of time.

[pnwguy2]

As mentioned above, many States require a number of days each year. It is state law in Washington State, for example. This year Eastern WA had an unusually snowy/icy winter, and much of the makeup will be taking service days away, full days on what would have been half-days, and in some cases, Saturday lectures. But atleast in Washington, they must make the hours add up to the minimum.

[North Beach Person]

Ours were always added on at the end of year after Finals (very often even after grade were due) so they were absolutely monumental wastes of time during which we were expected to present engaging and meaningful lessons.