Snow Day Used To Mean Fun Day At Home, But No

Every year on Groundhog Day, which is Tuesday, Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his burrow to see if he will see his shadow, which predicts six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, spring is right around the corner.

From the current weather forecast, it doesn’t look and feel like spring is around the corner.

At press time, a winter storm warning was in effect through 1 a.m. Friday, and Noblesville Schools made the decision to cancel in-person classes but make use of eLearning Days to impending weather conditions.

For high schoolers, an eLearning day means sleeping in until 8:30 a.m. (Usually, we get up at 7 a.m. to get ready for a bus ride to school, which starts at 8:40 a.m.) There will be no Zoom video-conferencing but rather classroom assignments, which are all to be posted online for students by 9 a.m.

When I was in school, a snow day meant staying home without new homework assignments because there were no iPads, or school Canvas or emails for teachers to communicate with students. A snow day also meant playing favorite board games or watching old movies on TV with Mom and Dad, who likely were also home due to inclement weather.

When I was in school, there was no state requirement as there is today. The state now requires students to attend at least 180 days of school, and any days that are canceled, including due to inclement weather, must be made up by extending the school year.

Using eLearning days preserves instruction so there are no missed school days to make up.

Having no in-person classes also means there will be no extracurricular activities. For us, that includes no Wednesday after school being the first read-through of the NHS spring play.

The weather forecast calls for a 60 percent chance of snow through today with no precipitation expected on Friday or Saturday, although the temperatures will be in the teens over the weekend, including below zero.

If the snow sticks around, I bet there will be time after homework to go sledding in Noblesville’s Forest Park.

-Contact Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com.