Why can’t Grafton students attend class remotely instead of taking a snow day?

Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings has received a number of questions about his decision to make Tuesday a snow day, rather than have all Grafton students attend school remotely when the roads are unsafe to travel. This was his response on the district’s Facebook page:

The state mandates 180 days in a typical school year.  This year they modified that to 170 days due to the late start to the school year.

Back in the summer, I am sure we discussed the possibility of the use of remote days in place of snow days, but the state did not approve that option until the fall.

In Grafton, we have focused on maximizing in-person and synchronous learning as much as possible since September. To that end, we have hundreds of students with special needs attending in-person every day.  Our ability to switch to an entirely new remote system for these students and teachers, based on the weather, really is not feasible or fair. We also have hundreds of students who are economically disadvantaged and we do not have 1:1 technology in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, or fifth grade.

On a snow day, that means a significant portion of our young students may or may not have access to a dedicated device or have assistance in trying to navigate a remote learning day.The many districts that have been predominantly remote all year, can easily shift to all remote on snow days if they choose. 

The fact that we, as a school district, are built to maximize in-person learning actually works against us with remote snow days.  I consider it a small price to pay in the context of the system that we have built to best meet as many needs as possible and to maximize in-person and synchronous learning in this unique school year.