It’s the beginning of December and you read in the forecast that Goffstown is predicted to get 8 inches of snow tomorrow. You wake up the next day to the powdery snow on every square inch of your yard and it’s a snow day; then you remember it’s not just any snow day. This past year the district made the rule that students will now have to participate in assignments from home on their day off from school. You will have to log onto the school website and do the work your teachers assigned you. You no longer have a day to catch up on say missing work, sleep and you can no longer relax. Many districts around New Hampshire are implementing snow day blizzard bags into their schools. A blizzard bag is technically a “snow day”, but students work from home on assignments planned by their teachers. Therefore, the snow days do not need to made up in the summer heat.

Most schools say if there isn’t a certain amount of participation, then the snow day will still have to be made up.  A majority of schools say that they need 80 percent participation in order for the snow day to count as an official day of school. Therefore, if only some of the students participate in the work assigned, and the snow day does not count then the students that do the work are somewhat doing two days of work and school. Some of the districts around New Hampshire that do participate in the blizzard bags include Kearsarge, Litchfield, Pembroke, Conval, and Timberlane.

Many superintendents and school districts believe that for some circumstances they are useful, but others not so much. Pembrokes superintendent stated, “We decided that there’s no way that a blizzard bag day is going to replace a day of instruction. So what we’re going to use blizzard bag days for in the future is if we start piling up snow days.”

I think adding blizzard bags to a snow day comes with a lot of consideration and communication. If the school is confident in the participation and it works for their students, I think it’s a really smart idea; however I think the cons outweigh the pros in blizzard bags. If school districts like Goffstown tend to only have around 3-4 snow days a year I think letting the students enjoy their day off is the best idea.