Snow days may turn into school days

The Pennsylvania Department of Education passed Act 64 on July 31, allowing schools to apply for Flexible Instructional Days when students are unable to attend school, such as in the case of inclement weather.

According to High School Principal Mr. Andrew Rantz, as of Oct. 29, Milton finished the application process and was approved by the state to use these days.

Mr. Rantz said these days would be used in place of snow days, with students doing their work online, much like they do now with the Supersub when teachers are absent.

Mr. Rantz said the application process consisted of providing evidence to the state of how the school will conduct virtual or digital lessons. “In short, we are required to send in sample lesson plans of how those days’ classes will be held,” he added.

According to Mr. Rantz, the district is planning to use these days in one of two ways. He said the Flexible Instructional Days could be used in place of the fifth snow and subsequent days of a school year, for which there are no built-in make up days. These days could also be used in place of all snow days, Mr. Rantz added. “Even if we get approved to use these days, there’s no guarantee that we will use them at all,” he said.

Mr. Rantz said when the district gave students individual devices last year, administration discussed having Flexible Instructional Days in place of snow days. “We talked about it because other states like West Virginia and Ohio were doing it,” he added.

In Spring of 2018, Pennsylvania stopped allowing schools to have Flexible Instructional Days. Mr. Rantz said no schools in this area had used Flexible Instructional Days before this time. He added that a year later, the provision was put back into place.

Mr. Rantz said an advantage of using these days is there will be fewer days to make up at the end of the year.

“A bad winter with five or more snow days means you have to put them at the end of the school year,” Mr. Rantz said. “With these Flexible Instructional Days, we will not have to make these days up.”

He said last year was the only time in his five year tenure that the district has used more than five snow/emergency days. Mr. Rantz added this was due to the mold issues at the beginning of last school year.

He said events like graduation, which are sometimes impacted by extra make up days, will not have to be rescheduled if Flexible Instructional Days are used.

Mr. Rantz said the biggest downside of these Flexible Instructional Days will be “figuring out the logistics of them.” He added that the district will have to make sure all students have an internet connection at home before these days can be used. He added that the district will also have to figure out how to track student attendance and work completion.

According to Mr. Rantz, the school provides a hotspot to any student that does not have an internet connection at their house. To get this hotspot, students have to notify a teacher or administrator that they do not have an internet connection. “We are pretty close to having most students connected to Wi-Fi, so hopefully this will not be a big issue when it comes to using Flexible Instructional Days,” he said.

Mr. Rantz said classes without traditional school work, like art and music classes, will do the same types of assignments they do when they have a class with the Supersub.

He said he is not sure what elementary students will do on Flexible Instructional Days. He added that they have to do something when the middle school and high school do something for the school day to count. “The problem is grades K-2 were given I-Pads that must stay at school, so we are not sure what we will do with those students yet,” Mr. Rantz added.

Supersub Ms. Noelle Humphries said there are many great parts about having assignments in Sapphire, similarly to how work will be assigned during Flexible Instructional Days. She said one of these positives is having all of the materials a student needs to complete an assignment in one place. “For example, worksheets are made into editable PDFS or word documents, lectures can be done via video, there are discussion forums, educational videos can be linked, rubrics can be posted,” she added. “The list goes on. It’s a really great tool when it’s used to its full capabilities.”

Ms. Humphries said the best assignments teachers assign during these days would be meaningful ones or interesting ones. “One of my favorite assignments I’ve seen was for an English class. Students were given a [PowerPoint] of memes to choose from, and had to develop characters based on those memes and write a narrative. It was so funny and really engaging,” she added.

Ms. Humphries said if the district decides to use Flexible Instructional Days, she has a few tips. She said the district should set tight deadlines for assignments, require the assignments to be graded and make sure all students have access to Wi-Fi.