Waking up in the morning on school days during the winter felt like a crime, as I was too warm and too comfy inside my blankets to even fathom leaving. My alarm would keep ringing and after letting it go on for a bit, I would reach out unwillingly and turn it off, slowly getting up. Just as I gained the courage to slide out of bed, my mom would come in and tell me that schools are closed today because of the snow. Sure enough, I heard the morning news on TV from the other room, talking about the weather. I laid back down under the covers with a smile on my face and it seems as though all my problems have been solved. Later in the day, I’d sometimes go out to play with the snow that had landed on our car, throwing snowballs at my dad as he brushed off the rest. This was in elementary school and in middle school, back when snow days used to exist. Down the line, COVID-19 popped up in 2020, introducing remote learning as the new normal for attending school. Since then, it seems the Department of Education (DOE) was never fully able to let it go, even after New York City schools shifted back to being fully in-person in 2021. Because of the city’s decision to hold classes online instead of just giving the day off, students are now deprived of snow days, a core source of excitement as a child.
An example is the snowstorm on Tuesday, Feb. 13, where the DOE announced that classes would be held remotely. The decision came with NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ reasoning that it’s “important to give children enrolled in the nation’s largest school system stability” to prevent further learning loss that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adams referred to NYC public schools as “the nation’s largest school system,” yet certain actions have suggested otherwise, such as recent budget cuts in November 2023 that have negatively impacted schools in numerous ways. With a lesser budget for the DOE to work with, Adams has even gone as far as urging parents to volunteer in schools to make up for the pause in staff hiring, and while this move hasn’t impacted teachers, it’s possible that it will soon.
Managing such a large education system can only be done through parts, and a difference can only be made when all aspects of the problem are addressed. According to the New York Post, one parent shared, “I usually don’t even have the time to pick up my kid,” something most NYC parents can relate to as they’re rushing to work. New York City is a diverse community, both racially and economically, so it’s vital to take that into account when considering exactly what Adams is asking of these parents.
Aside from flaws in the justification of it, the remote learning day did not go smoothly at all. Because there were nearly a million users signing on at the same time, technical difficulties seemed likely. Some students and teachers spent nearly an hour just trying to log in with their accounts, and all that showed up was an error page. The issue stemmed from the tech company IBM, which is responsible for the authentication of usernames. The system couldn’t handle so many users at once, leaving some students and teachers frustrated with no other course of action to take. Around 8:30 a.m., IBM stated that they had “added capacity and improvements are rolling out across the system,” after the DOE had posted about actively working with them to resolve the issue. However, the issue persisted well into the day, with no sign of getting better. At this point, the only option was to just give up. One parent shared with AP News that one of his children was able to log on, while the other was not. “It honestly worked out for the best. I’d rather not have the youngest on a device all day anyways,” he stated. It would have been much easier for everyone, including the DOE, if classes had just been canceled for the day, allowing students to get outside and enjoy the weather.
As for the tech issues that arose from the city’s unpreparedness for this scale of remote learning, Adams believed that it was, in fact, the parents’ fault for not helping their children. “If you are a parent and you are not willing to navigate a computer for your child, that’s a sad commentary,” Adams said at a press conference, unwilling to see that the technical difficulties students faced were not in their hands. It was an issue that arose due to the lack of preparedness from the DOE, and the mayor himself. He added on, saying, “Snow days, my mother had to walk us to school with her arthritic knees,” yet there’s no comparison being made.
A clear solution for Adams’ late mother, or any parent with arthritic knees, is a snow day! It seems as though that’s the whole point — for parents to not be inconvenienced about making sure their child gets to school. 25% of people in NYC are not proficient in English. Their primary concern is not going to be learning how to navigate a laptop after an error from the city’s administration. At the end of the day, the nature of weather is to be unpredictable and shifting to remote learning at will simply isn’t a feasible option.
Haniyyah Usmani FCRH ’27 is undecided from The Bronx.
