The snow storms of 2010 cost Fairfax County a total of ten school days. To make up for lost time, the school board has changed April 12 from a teacher work day to a full school day, and as of March 4, made the decision to extend the last day of school to June 25.
There were three options that were under consideration, and all proposed changing the teacher workday on April 12 to a full school day. Option one would extend the school days by 30 minutes from March 8 through June 21; option two would add on 30 to 45 minutes to each school day between those dates. Finally, the third choice would take the remaining makeup days and add them on to the end of the school year.
“The first three days [we missed] are already built into the schedule, so we don’t need to make them up,” said Principal John Banbury. “Day four and five need to be made up, but after five days you make up every other day from then on.”
When following those standards, Fairfax County has a total of four days to make up for its students to reach its requirement of 990 instructional hours for the school year.
“The logical question is ‘why do we do this?’, and I honestly have no idea,” Banbury said. “We don’t have to make up day six, but we have to make up day seven.”
Though there is a system for assigning makeup days, the question remains of how to designate all of these hours. This is where debate rises: which of these options should the board choose?
“I think that a combination of taking teacher workdays and adding minutes to the school days is the best option for students and teachers,” Banbury said. “The most important thing is for teachers to have enough time to teach and students to have enough time to learn and prepare for upcoming exams.”
Teachers have expressed mixed reactions as many face upcoming test dates.
“Well, initially I was thrilled. Being from the Northeast, obviously I love snow,” said government teacher Eliot Waxman. “The biggest challenge, however, is that I teach an AP class and College Board won’t change the test date for us – May 3 is set in stone.”
While all test days are set, AP government teachers are scheduled for the first date on the AP examination calendar, giving their classes even less time to prepare.
“Ultimately, we’ll be really crunched for time. I’ve been forced to shave things off my teaching schedule and compact my classes. It’ll put pressure on the students and force us to sort of ‘all be in it together’,” Waxman said. “Hopefully everyone will have a good sense of humor about it. If not, it’ll be pretty miserable.”
AP Language teacher Beth Blankenship said that while she has been working to catch up with her lesson plans, her classes can handle the setbacks.
“I’m for option four,” Blankenship said. “It’s my own option: do nothing. I’ve given my students enough work, and I think we should just move on.”
In addition to the curriculum, this “snowmageddon” has also interfered with school trips and events, such as the senior Model Congress trip to Capitol Hill.
“The big thing was we had to postpone the trip until spring, likely until May, though we’re still working on the when and how,” Waxman said. “The reason we postponed was because of the time lost collectively for the whole school, and the government teachers couldn’t prepare students to go.”
Though the visiting day has been moved toward the end of the year, the student experience will not be significantly impacted; the trip, rather than acting as an introduction to Model Congress, will be a cumulative experience.
Though the snow had brought on its consequences at school, it served as a second winter break to students. As the school began announcing snow days, senior Allison Hicks, inspired by the DuPont Circle snowball fight in D.C., decided to form her own event.
“It was great,” said senior Anthony Schiavo who attended the “Snow War.” “Everyone had been cooped up inside, so just getting out and doing something snow-related was awesome.”
Though there weren’t thousands of participants as in DuPont, Hicks was able to gather around a dozen of her friends at Fox Mill Elementary using Facebook group invitations.
“It was fine the way it was. The more people there had been, the more fun it would have been,” Schiavo said.
Now that the snow has stopped and school is back in session, the snow day debate options has reached the student body; both Hicks and Schiavo lean toward option three.
“I prefer option three because I am a senior, and I would not be going to those days,” Schiavo said.
While Hicks expressed the same view, she said that the smartest option for the county would be adding minutes to the end of classes.
“I know my teachers get the most out of every minute,” Hicks said.
we should not have any make-up days!!!!!