As the weather gets colder, flakes of snow are falling, and roads are getting icey. Students begin looking forward to their long, awaited snow days. But due to better access to technology and a nudge from the COVID lockdowns, schools have been taking a different approach to learning on these snow days, instead calling them Flexible Instructional Days (FID). 

FID days are when students do not attend school due to inclimate weather and participate in online learning.  They  primarily started after schools were forced to lockdown due to COVID-19 in hopes to prevent the virus from spreading. A survey taken by Education Week provides the percentage of schools who have replaced snow days with FID days as well as schools who have not, “Because of the pandemic about 40% of school districts have replaced traditional snow days with remote-learning days, while only 20% have preserved the days off.”

Some school districts, like Boyertown, have tried to combine the two. After using all the snow days given for the year, and if there are more days where schools are needed to be called off, then they will have the student participate in a FID day. 

The BASD website states,  “We have three built-in snow days for the 2021-2022 school year.  As of 11/1/2021, we have used one of those days.That being said, we have two additional days, prior to moving to a Flexible Instruction Day.” Administration goes on to explain why Boyertown has stated to use FID days in addition to snow days. “Flexible Instruction Days (FIDs) allow us to minimize the impact that emergency closures have on student learning and the need for make-up days at the end of the school year.  Kids can get their school work done AND still get out there and play in the snow!”

 A few students and staff at BASH want to share their opinions on the FID days instead of snow days, teachers and students’ responses seemed to differ:

Kenidy Ruyack, a junior at BASH, gave her opinions on FID days saying, “I’d rather have FID days because we do get off of school and honestly online school is easier for me. Sleeping in is also a plus.”

Randall Yenser, a phys Ed teacher st BASH gives his views on FID days from a teacher point of view by adding, “As a teacher I really like FID days because these are now days that we don’t have to make up and we can still reach out to the student and be productive.” 

Like them or not, it seems as though they are here to stay as a permanent fixture in our educational experience post-COVID.