With some regret, the St. Paul school board on Monday night authorized the use of e-learning on days when the weather forces students and teachers to stay home.
The snow day, in order words, may be a thing of the past.
“It definitely makes me feel like I grew up or something when I’m having kids do schoolwork on snow days,” board member Chauntyll Allen said before the unanimous vote.
Minnesota law allows school districts to apply up to five e-learning days each school year toward the state’s minimum required hours of instruction. But St. Paul hasn’t taken full advantage.
The district for several years has had the tools to do it, thanks to a 1:1 iPad initiative funded by city property owners.
And, over the last 11 months, the district has developed the expertise to do it, courtesy of a coronavirus pandemic that has had most of the district’s students learning from home since March.
E-learning days will look a lot like distance learning during the pandemic. Students are expected to carry their district-issued Apple iPads between home and school each day.
In the event of dangerously cold or snowy weather, or some other school-closing mishap, Superintendent Joe Gothard now can call an e-learning day, and students will be expected to log on rather than make a snowman or go back to bed.
“No longer does a cancellation of school due to the weather or a burst water pipe have to mean students are unable to continue making academic progress,” Gothard said.
CALENDAR ISSUES
The district’s calendar typically includes five school days more than is required by state law, to allow for a blizzard or two.
That proved insufficient in 2018-19 when St. Paul called off seven days of school due to frightful forecasts. However, Gov. Tim Walz that year signed a special law allowing schools to fall short on instruction hours that year only because of the unusually cold and snowy winter.
With the school board’s assent, St. Paul now can call up to five e-learning days rather than calling off school.
Gothard isn’t ruling out snow days entirely, though, saying it may not make sense to hold an e-learning day on the Monday after a long winter break, for instance.
“It just provides the option. It is not guaranteed that we wouldn’t have a snow day,” said Kate Wilcox-Harris, the district’s chief academic officer.
It used to be that state officials would look the other way when districts fell short on instruction hours, which was not uncommon. But now, they’re threatening to withhold $40 in state funding per student per day, Wilcox-Harris said.
In order to meet that minimum for a select group of students, St. Paul at the end of last school year added some e-learning time for middle schoolers at K-8 schools.
The only other e-learning day was held for security reasons on Election Day last November, when 99 percent of their students were scheduled to learn from home anyway.
Craig Anderson, who heads the district’s Office of Teaching and Learning, said each snow day costs St. Paul district students roughly 200,000 hours of learning time.
“I know that there’s nostalgia attached to snow days,” he said. “Our job, from the Office of Teaching and Learning, is we’re really focused on teaching and learning.”
LATE START IN FALL
The school board on Monday also agreed to postpone the start of the 2021-22 school year by converting Sept. 7-8 into teacher workdays because of an unusually early Rosh Hoshanah.
The Jewish New Year falls on Sept. 7 this year, and some believers celebrate for two days. Jewish community members brought the conflict to the district’s attention in December.
The district in past years has held school on Rosh Hoshanah, allowing students to stay home and observe the holiday without penalty, but officials didn’t want students missing the first days of school.
Many of Minnesota’s largest school districts plan to start either before or after the holiday, as well. According to calendars published on their websites, most grades will return to school on the following dates:
- Aug. 30: Rochester and North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale
- Aug. 31: South Washington County (grades 7-8 and 10-12 start the next day)
- Sept. 8: Minneapolis, Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan, Osseo, Robbinsdale, Wayzata, Lakeville and Minnetonka
- Sept. 9: St. Paul
Three large districts still are set to begin on Sept. 7: Anoka-Hennepin, Mounds View and Bloomington.
For St. Paul, the change means that, barring any cancellations, students will have three more days of instruction next school year than the state requires.
Family engagement director Heather Kilgore said the district’s calendar committee plans to speak with community members of various faiths before drafting the next three years of school calendars. Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, is one day they might begin scheduling around.
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