Snow days no longer mean no school

FAIRFIELD - Fairfield and Pekin community school districts entered a new era Thursday by holding class on what otherwise would have been a 'snow day.”

Superintendents at both schools said it was the first time they were able to move their classes from in-person to online in response to inclement weather.

Pekin Superintendent Dave Harper and Fairfield Superintendent Laurie Noll said they decided early Wednesday afternoon to make Thursday a virtual-only day. That allowed them to give ample notice to teachers and students to prepare for online lessons.

A few weeks ago in mid-January, a snowstorm hit the area, and both districts decided to cancel class rather than attempt online courses. Noll said the district was not quite ready at that time to switch so quickly to virtual learning. She said it's not easy for some teachers to conduct classes at home because they have kids who also need the internet, and they don't have enough bandwidth to accommodate everyone who needs to be online at once.

Noll said the district sent out a survey to teachers to ask what they needed to be able to quickly transition to online learning, and one of the top responses was that the teachers needed enough advance notice to upload videos before the school day began in case it was not possible to hold live classes over Zoom.

This time around, Fairfield knew of the coming storm sooner and thus was able to give teachers Wednesday afternoon to prepare online lessons for Thursday. Noll said many teachers created videos and lecture notes at that time, which they could upload for the students to study on Thursday.

Fairfield announced on its website that teachers would be available to respond to students' questions during normal school hours from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

Harper said his district has purchased additional hot spots for students to check out if they do not have the internet at home, which is no cost to the student.

Harper said Pekin may switch to an all-virtual day if another snowstorm comes through the area.

'We will use the virtual day as an option for us if we start to experience a lot of school cancellations due to weather and are getting close to our 1,080 hours that the Department of Education requires,” he said. 'I do not see it happening for every day that we missed since some planning needs to happen before the day, and we live in Iowa.”

Though it's great Pekin has the ability to hold class during bouts of bad weather, Harper said he doesn't want to see snow days become a thing of the past.

'Every kid needs a good old-fashion snow day,” he said. 'Some of my fondest memories are going outside with my friends and playing in the snow. Kids need to be kids.”