During this pandemic winter, Head of School Tom Dillow has only called one snow day but has taken advantage of the school’s familiarity with Zoom and called two remote days due to weather.
Students are concerned about whether or not we will have real snow days next year and Mr. Dillow said that this was on his mind. “A default would be a snow day whereby a remote day may come into play if we’ve had a critical mass of snow days,” Mr. Dillow said. There will definitely be snow days next year. “I believe in the unadulterated joy that you get from finding out school is cancelled,” he said. Mr. Dillow said that he thinks teachers may even love snow days more than students.
Director of Academic Planning Carolyn McKee has been a key voice in the discussion of snow days. “We’ve had times where we have had snow days for three or four days or we’ve really gotten out of sync,” Ms. Mckee said. “The ability to get remote now will be nice.”
Ms. McKee said being online on Zoom all day is extremely tough for both students and teachers. “We really need to think about screen time,” Ms. McKee said, calling attention to what makes remote snow days challenging.“One thing that we didn’t do that we would do next year if we’re still in some kind of situation like this is create a remote snow day schedule,” she said.
This remote snow day schedule would make sure the students and teachers weren’t online for the duration of the day. The remote snow day schedule this year was just the regular school day but transferred to zoom. It consisted of four, one hour and 15 minute classes as well as 30 minutes between classes and an hour and 15 minute lunch break. The day started at 8:00 a.m. and ended at 3:15 p.m.
Ms. McKee said that students should have more time off screens on remote days. Transferring the in-person schedule to a remote day is tough for everyone, she said. Ms. McKee didn’t want to keep throwing out new schedules because it’s too many changes for the teachers and students, she said.
Mr. Dillow said that the discovery of Zoom has opened up many new opportunities but also has its drawbacks. “It threatened the fun and joy for students everywhere,” he said. “It threatened to end it.” Mr. Dillow explained how he made the decisions, when he called remote snow days this winter. “It’s been trying to figure out what’s an appropriate balance of how many days we have lost, and where everyone is in terms of their social emotional health right now.” He said. Mr. Dillow said that he knows he can’t make everyone happy when he makes these calls.
Dean of Students Krista Sahrbeck said she feels that remote days are helpful, and it is usually the timing of when we get bad weather. Ms. Sahrbeck explained how last Friday KO already had Monday and Tuesday off and another day would have been really difficult. Mr. Dillow agreed. “My heart wanted to call a snow day last Friday, but my head said this wasn’t the right time,” he said. Now that the school has the right technological capabilities, going remote is much more reasonable in a situation like this, Mr. Dillow said.
When deciding what is going to be a snow day versus a regular school day, Mr. Dillow takes information from about 40 different schools around Connecticut. His main goal is to make sure the roads are going to be safe for teachers and students to get to school. Mr. Dillow said that the buildings and grounds crew are crucial for getting the school ready after snow. “They are often working all through the night and will sleep here to make sure that school can be cleared,” he said. He added that students often don’t think about the people who make it possible for us to come on campus.
There are many people who are involved with the decision making process. “I’m on a text often times at 4:30 in the morning or late at night before,” he said. Mr. Dillow made it clear that there are many faculty members as well as heads of other schools he talks with before making the final decision.
Ms. Sahrbeck said that teachers put in so much work to prepare for both online and in-person classes that students need to be more appreciative of the teachers. It is very difficult for them to plan lessons that can be taught online and in person, she said.
She said that when we do have remote snow days she thinks it’s disrespectful for students to skip classes. “What’s so great about our teachers is that they love the relationship and they love what they teach,” Ms. Sahrbeck said, “and then to have kids just pick and choose when they want to come or show up, I think is just a little disrespectful.” It’s hard for teachers to teach on a remote snow day just as much as it is for the students to learn so we should all be respectful of each other’s time, Ms. Sahrbeck said.
Ms. McKee said we are lucky to even be in school. “I was so scared we would start the year remote, and I just don’t think it would be the same,” she said. Many schools didn’t get the opportunity to start in school and we are lucky for that, Ms. McKee said.
Mr. Dillow wants people to know that these decisions are not easy, and having the hopes of around 515 children on his shoulders is tough. He had had a potential idea for the future: a ping pong competition where if the winner can ultimately beat the Head of School, then they can call the next snow day and make that decision. “I need to hear a plan from the students for when the students can call a snow day,” Mr. Dillow said.
