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New York City schools will get a traditional snow day on Monday as the area braces for 18-24 inches of snow and blizzard-like conditions, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Sunday.
In a surprising move, the school system will not pivot to remote learning as it did last month. The state granted it a waiver to have an old-school snow day, Mamdani said.
“We believe that there are a unique set of extenuating circumstances,” the mayor said about the request for the waiver.
The city is enacting a travel ban from 9 p.m. Sunday to noon on Monday as part of declaring a state of emergency, Mamdani said.
New York City had stopped having traditional snow days in 2020, deciding that schools could instead offer remote learning to help meet the mandated 180 instructional days as more holidays have been added to the calendar.
And as holidays have crowded the calendar, the city has relied on state regulations that allow certain professional development days to count toward the total number of instructional days. This year, the city is counting four such days as instruction, leaving students in class for just 176 days this year. But the city was able to get the OK for one more day off without having to pay a fiscal penalty, the mayor said.
It’s the second major storm in less than a month. But Sunday’s storm — expected to be the most serious in a decade — threw some wrenches, making it more complicated for schools to make sure students were prepared with devices at home.
The storm’s late-breaking nature meant that school leaders didn’t get communications from the Education Department until Friday night. Officials told principals they would get overtime pay to open up their buildings over the weekend to distribute devices to students in need. But since schools had been out all week on midwinter recess, some families and educators were out of town, making it harder to spring into action.
“Timing is everything,” schools chancellor Kamuel Samuels said on Sunday. “Students and staff have been out of buildings for the last week, and many are still out of town and out of the country. Given this, along with the severe nature of this weather event, we do not believe providing remote instruction tomorrow would be effective.”
Samuels said his high school junior approved of the move for a traditional snow day.
Snow days, whether traditional or remote learning, can be hard, however, on some families who need child care or for students who rely on schools for hot meals.
“Having a traditional snow day is the right decision,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.
In a message to union members, he wrote that the UFT joined the city’s call for a waiver on the 180-school day policy. “New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa granted the waiver for several reasons including the fact that a travel ban will be in effect in the city, and that students and staff are unlikely to have the equipment they need for a day of remote learning,” Mulgrew wrote.
While the Education Department acknowledged “minor hiccups” during January’s remote day, there didn’t appear to be widespread issues. That day, however, may have benefited from the fact that a big chunk of students were already scheduled to be off: Only about 500,000 of the city’s nearly 900,000 students were required to report to virtual classrooms since high schools and schools serving grades 6-12 had a staff development day.
City officials said they had been working with IT vendors to conduct load testing to ensure systems are fully ready for remote learning and that they recently completed load testing for up to 1.2 million logins. The city had faced a technical meltdown from two years ago when snow forced schools to go remote and many students and teachers were unable to log on, despite efforts to practice in advance.
Instead of grappling with potential tech issues, Mamdani had a message for students about the snow day: “To kids across New York City, you have a very serious mission, if you choose to accept it.”
Alex Zimmerman contributed.
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.
