Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

My name is Nikola Podolefsky. I am ten years old and attending fourth grade at Niwot Elementary. My school district does not let students have snow days anymore, but instead forces us to attend online meetings through WebEx. I have written this article to help people understand why this is so hard for students, and so that maybe this will change.

Why Snow Days Should Come Back

“Mom! Mom! It’s snowing! Get the sled!”

“No, get your iPad, Online Learning Day.”

St. Vrain has decided that all snow days should be spent attending online meetings as a substitute for school, but I feel that we should have snow days for play and breaks. We should have snow days off school, because most importantly, students should occasionally have week days to unwind. I also believe that during Webex meetings, students are distracted and don’t learn very much. Lastly, I feel that people just have always thought of snow days as a fun stay-at-home-day, which are an important part of our regular lives. I hope that by writing this opinion piece I can change some minds about this unfair policy.

As we begin the year 2024, I’d like us all to remember that with climate change, pandemics, and even wars around the world, students are very stressed. Furthermore, as explained by Education Week, this stress even follows students to school, where they’re expected to do work, and assignments despite their stressed state. Some people believe the stress doesn’t affect students as much as it does, and think that kids get just enough rest with the weekends and free time they are already getting. What they don’t know is that this idea that students are not stressed is a misperception of known facts. I feel that young people should get snow days as time to unwind, and deal with that stress.

I feel that a student should enjoy being a child for the short time they are, by embracing the joys of snowy winter days, without the stress of online learning.

Nikola Podolefsky