SNOW MANY QUESTIONS

By MELISSA NOLAN 

Turning off the alarm, sleeping in, and waking up to a beautiful white landscape is just one of the many reasons why students and teachers alike love snow days.  There is a feeling of excitement that comes from knowing that the whole day lies ahead with endless possibilities.  But while we are all sleeping, what happens behind the scenes to determine this blissful day of freedom?

When snow days do occur, students absolutely take advantage of the day off.  Many sleep in, watch television, or hang out with friends.  Senior Sam Crouch exclaimed, “I like to watch Netflix, specifically Stranger Things.”  She also pointed out, “I also stay in sweatpants and make cookies after I come in from being outside.  Snow days are my favorite days because I can catch up on sleep.”  It is definitely a well needed day off for everyone. Well, almost everyone.

MELISSA NOLAN FOR THE WIZARD WEEKLY

Mr. Sullivan, Executive Director of Operations, is one person who is not able to sleep in on these glorious days.  Along with Superintendent Roy Reese, he ultimately makes the decision to close, delay opening or remain open.   Since the district is only allocated a certain amount of snow days each year, administration always needs to be extremely careful when doling them out.  

The cancellation process is an extremely complex one.  It all starts at four in the morning,  where administrators closely follow weather forecasts from places like accuweather.com and Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) on Twitter.  Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Reese, along with the other superintendents in the area, talk amongst themselves, deciding what is best for the safety of the students.  Meanwhile, the Washingtonville School District mechanics drive the area and give a report back to the operations department, adding to the factors that determine snow days. 

Sullivan expresses, “The safety of the students is our top priority.  If the buses can’t transport the kids safely, then we can’t have school.  It also depends on how much the school has cleaned up the sidewalks and parking lots.”  The grounds crew and custodians do as much as they can to make the school as safe as possible.  This whole process is thought out logically and thoroughly. Talking to other school districts about what they will be doing due to the inclimate weather makes this a county wide effort.

Snowman building on the day off.

With the amount of snow we have been pummeled with this winter, many have been wondering how many snow days we actually have left.  As much as most people love a good snow day, no one wants to lose vacation days as a result.  Sullivan beings to explain, “We start with eight snow days for the year.  As of right now, we do not have anymore left.”  Going over the snow day limit, first takes away the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and then starts chipping away at our spring break, starting with the Monday after Easter Sunday.

Although these white wonderlands may look like a perfect picture, sometimes events are affected and do not go as planned disappointing members of the community.  For example, Washingtonville High School’s Masque and Mime Society put on their spring play, Thoroughly Modern Millie on March 1-3rd.  Kaitlyn Metichecchia, president and four year member of Masque and Mime, explained how the snow day affected their last and final show of the year.  “We had a snow day on Friday, so the show got moved to Sunday.  Because of this, we had a smaller audience because not all of the people could come on the other day.  It got all messed up and we had to move the show to the day we were supposed to have off.  It was messy.”  This, along with many other sporting events, have been moved around due to the many days off throughout this winter season.

While most people will not deny that snow days are a really nice surprise,  when they affect vacation days and wreak havoc on scheduled events, they can be a nightmare.  Hopefully Mother Nature will start to comply and bring on spring!