In the past years before having virtual days, HAHS and a lot of other schools would utilize snow days if the weather was hazardous for transportation. The school would update their calendar to adjust to the snow days that would need to be made up by using the snow make up days through the students spring break or a couple days at the end of the year. In recent years, virtual learning days have been used to substitute for this so students can ultimately learn even though they are not in a school setting. This causes a lot of mixed feelings for students.
For example, Sophomore Lydia Fultz prefers traditional snow days over virtual because, “If there is snow outside, I want to go outside and do things like sledding, but when we are virtual, I can’t do that.” There are a couple pros about virtual which she says one of these is the shorter schedule. There is also usually less work to do, so it goes by much faster and is a bit more relaxing than going into school. Rest assured, she still does like snow days over virtual days.
On the other hand, Sophomore Arianna Naranjo prefers having virtual days rather than a traditional snow day. “I like virtual days better than snow days because even though we still need to be present in our classes and do our work, we don’t have to worry about our work as much as a regular day.” She always hopes to have more of these since she believes they are just better than snow days. This would also ensure that classes do not get too far behind in the unit they are learning.
Even though every student in HAHS has different opinions on what may be better for their education or comfort, both of these different options are designed for the safety of the students in bad weather conditions. Virtual days and snow days have their pros and cons, as does everything in this world, but the usage of learning virtually can help a class move much smoother than missing a day and potentially staggering students’ learning if there are too many snow days.
