Keep snow days for community’s well-being

This Tuesday could have been a snow day.

Judging by the reaction from students and professors, it’s clear that many people thought it should have been.

However, it was not a snow day, and even more detrimental, there will never be another snow day, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.

With the new policies adopted, any future snow day will simply result in classes being moved to Zoom.

The Record Editorial Board is concerned with this development and the additional impacts that forced innovation as a result of COVID are having on the student experience.

The damaging effects of COVID on the mental and physical health of young adults has been widely reported on.

“Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real and widespread. Even before the pandemic, an alarming number of young people struggled with feelings of helplessness, depression, and thoughts of suicide—and rates have increased over the past decade,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release on HHS.gov. “The COVID-19 pandemic further altered their experiences at home, school, and in the community, and the effect on their mental health has been devastating.”

Snow days are one experience COVID has altered, and not in a way that benefits our community. This change isn’t unique to CSB/SJU. Schools around the country have replaced snow days with remote school days, and parents have been taking note.

When the New York City Department of Education made the decision, opinion writer Michelle Goldberg penned a sharp rebuke in the New York Times, titled “Save Snow Days!”

“It seems like callousness bordering on cruelty to scrap one of childhood’s greatest pleasures in favor of a rehash of pandemic life,” Goldberg said.

The decision to eliminate snow days isn’t just unpopular. It’s also logistically difficult for several groups on campus, and most prominently, faculty.

When there’s enough snow to cause a snow day here at CSB/SJU, that usually means that transportation challenges have caused schools in the areas to cancel school, meaning that the children of faculty members are not only required to teach a class on Zoom but also to simultaneously care for their children.

This difficulty was evidenced in several classes on Tuesday by professors who opted to hold class over Zoom who also had children home because their schools had declared snow days.

Furthermore, the decision to eliminate snow days in favor of online-learning days serves as a detriment to the value of community so heavily emphasized at CSB/SJU. In the past, snow days served as some of the most memorable parts of the college experience.

Students were provided the opportunity to enjoy time with their peers and develop traditions, among other outdoor activities. It also allowed students to catch up on school work or simply take a much needed break and relax.

“On one hand, burnout and stress are at an all-time high as a result of the pandemic,” University of Minnesota associate professor of school psychology Faith Miller said in an interview for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. “About half of Americans don’t feel like they have enough time to do everything they want to do. Snow days provide that opportunity, that possibility for obligations to be temporarily abandoned. This type of discretionary time is linked to happiness and life satisfaction.”

It’s important to recognize that snow days provide students unexpected relief from the daily stressors of college life. Getting rid of them in an effort to prioritize a 55 or 70 minute class on Zoom that will have a minimal effect on the student experience is a distinctly poor decision.