On Monday, Feb. 12, during everyone’s third period, it was announced by Principal Colby that all New York City Department of Education schools were going to have their first “snow day” of the year.
Students were absolutely ecstatic about this information, as you could almost hear screams of joy throughout the halls. Tuesday, Feb. 13 came along with some inches of snow across New York, but it wasn’t a free day off for students and staff.
During school hours on Tuesday, as it snowed, students were still expected to log into remote learning, as New York City has done away with actual snow days. Now, when schools close for bad weather, remote learning takes over.
Cardozo students were expected to log into their Google Classrooms at 8:05 a.m. for homeroom, and to do their assigned work and join whatever Zoom calls and Google Meets they had throughout the day. It was almost exactly like a normal school day—just online—which is something you could compare back to when everyone was quarantined in 2020 due to Covid.
Nevertheless, this did not go as planned. The Department of Education experienced technological issues, with Zooms and Google Meets not working at the start of the school day. Adjustments were made though; instead of attendance being taken during homeroom on call, students just had to fill out a Google Form on Cardozo’s official website to mark their official attendance for the day.
Then, luckily, around third period, this issue was fixed, and all calls were back up. In many classes during the day, Respect For All activities were still being taught to all grades through some of their classes. With the weather, it snowed heavily from around 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., almost exactly the school day hours.
It snowed about 3 to 5 inches, depending on your area, which is shockingly the most snow New York has seen in some time. However, it was not enough to close school the following day, Wednesday, on Valentine’s Day. Students and staff made their way through the slush back to Cardozo for a regular school day.
Let’s hope to see another snowfall in New York soon, and maybe the system will work this time around.