Last week, most of the central peninsula, Anchorage, and the Mat-Su valley were blanketed with this winter’s first major snowstorm, and as a result schools in those areas were closed for every child’s winter dream: a snow day. However, there was a big difference between what transpired next in the Kenai Peninsula School District versus the Anchorage and Mat-Su school districts. Whereas the students in the former were out making snowmen, students in the latter were huddled in front of computer screens as their school day continued — remotely.
“We have talked about this in the past here, and I did see Anchorage is doing [remote snow day learning] now too. So I knew it would come up again here,” said Superintendent Clayton Holland on the KPBSD’s choice to make snow days up later in the school year, rather than use remote learning. “We could change it up a little bit and do something where packets or stuff are ready to go home [where] students know what they’re doing ahead of time, but we chose not to do that.”
In the Anchorage and Mat-Su school districts, remote learning continued after the COVID-19 pandemic when those districts opted to utilize on snow days the infrastructure established during the extended school closures of 2019 and 2020.
“Our district is 1-to-1, and so every student has access to a device. And for children that are younger, we have alternative plans for them, but we can offer remote learning on inclement weather days,” said Mat-Su Borough School District Public Information Officer, Jillian Morrisey.
“We learned a lot during COVID when students were online completely,” said Dr. Kirsten Johnson, ASD Senior Director of Teaching and Learning. “We found some effective modes to keep students learning even if they’re not able to come to us in person.”
Like the Mat-Su, Anchorage made the decision to continue the use of remote learning by swapping students to the alternative system on snow days.
Meanwhile, in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, the policy on remote learning on snow days is less idealistic, and more pragmatic. According to Superintendent Clayton Holland, a consummate realist on matters of education, a big portion of the rationale behind the policy is the acknowledgment of how effective (or ineffective in many cases) remote learning really is. “Some families are there and parents can stay home, [the kids] are engaged and we have other kids where they wouldn’t do a thing, and there’s no one to watch them.”
Holland’s point is worth considering. Remote learning, while effective in continuing education during school closures, has virtually no means of keeping unsupervised students engaged.
Morrisey with the Mat-Su district acknowledges the clear advantage of in person learning. “Remote learning is not ideal. In person learning is the best for our students, but remote learning allows our students to stay engaged with school work, and so it’s an opportunity for them to have connections to their teachers, have some sort of routine even when they’re not in school.”
In Anchorage, Johnson echoed Morrisey’s thoughts. “Obviously nothing replaces in person learning and that’s what we really want to do,” Johnson said. “But on days when students are home due to safety issues, there’s definitely effective ways that we can keep our instruction going with kids, and we’ve found value in that. So, rather than having to make up time, or inconvenience people with calendar changes, it is a way we can keep our learning going for the district.”
Beyond pragmatic ideas on remote learning, the sheer geography of the Kenai Peninsula presents substantial logistical and technical challenges to the district jumping to remote learning with moments notice. With the 10th largest geographical area (nearly 25,000 square miles) of any school district in the country, the scope and cost of ensuring there is a internet connected computer in the hand of every one of the more than 8,000 students in the district’s 42 schools is challenge enough.
The Anchorage School District, despite containing more schools, only comprises a 2,000 sq/mi area. While the population density is a connectivity boon for the ASD, the opposite is true for the Kenai Peninsula and surrounding area. “Part of why we haven’t done it so far is because we’re not as connected as a lot of a lot of Anchorage or the other areas,” said Superintendent Holland in a call to KSRM. “They have a lot of kids as far as actually physically connecting online. I’m having difficulty with it.”
There are considerations beyond the ideological, technical, and logistical though. “Part of it is too, we have a lot of employees that would be out of work on those days,” Holland said in reference to the large number of non-educator positions within the district. Every day schools are open is an income opportunity for those individuals, and snow days which are made up later in the year do not result in lost wages.
In the other districts, snow day compensation for non-education related positions relies on the collective bargaining. “It all just depends on what your position is,” said Morrisey regarding whether or not these employees are paid for snow days. Collective bargaining agreements create pay scale matrices for the various staff departments within a given district, as well as negotiated compensations for things like snow days.
Dr. Johnson for the Anchorage School District, also pointed to collective bargaining regarding whether or not those district employees were compensated on snow days. “Some people are compensated, others are not, so it really just depends on which union that they’re a part of.”
The Kenai Peninsula has similar collective bargaining at all the same levels of employment within the district, however for Holland and district leadership, snow days are one area they didn’t deem a necessary time to keep those employees out of work, especially when the old system of rescheduling a closure day already worked.
Since remote learning is also somewhat of a holdover policy from COVID-19 school closures, it’s worth noting how COVID policies are a topic Holland has not been coy on. Earlier this year, before school began, the KPBSD superintendent announced there would be no more special COVID accommodations by the district. This included masking, to which Holland at the time said, “I just want to make sure it’s loud and clear that we are not going to mandate masking. We’re not going to shut down or lock our kids out of school in any shape or form that is not happening here, I want to make sure the community knows that’s a non-factor.”
Holland’s pragmatism has been a consistent aspect of his time as superintendent, and that holds true for snow days as well.
Nevertheless, for now kids on the peninsula need not fear the loss of playing in any freshly fallen snow on those days that the schools close down.