When severe weather strikes, it seems our educational institutions often miss the mark.
With plenty of winter still ahead, last Monday’s much-criticized non-snow day for public school students wasn’t a slip-up by Mayor Mamdani. Future incidents before spring will similarly stem from a school calendar that he didn’t design. However, next year the decision to switch to remote learning instead of granting a day off will fall squarely on his shoulders. It’s time to rethink this policy that seems to value attendance numbers over genuine educational experiences.
In years gone by, snow days offered a delightful break for students and their families in New York. To compensate for lost time, additional days were factored into the school calendar, ensuring compliance with the state’s mandate of 180 instructional days. This sensible approach was backed by research indicating that snow days don’t negatively affect student learning, while keeping schools open during severe weather could be detrimental.
However, recent changes by Mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams have altered this arrangement. They introduced East Asian, Muslim, and Hindu holidays alongside existing Christian and Jewish observances. With the addition of Juneteenth, snow days (or flood days) have been replaced by remote learning sessions to satisfy state requirements.
The situation is further complicated by a state-sanctioned loophole allowing schools to count two professional development days toward the 180-day requirement, even though students aren’t present.
This erosion of educational quality needs to stop. Mayor Mamdani and the new chancellor, Kamar Samuels, must bring coherence and substance back to the school calendar. We need more effective school days, not fewer. The 180-day rule, primarily a fiscal strategy to maintain state funding for districts, falls short of addressing students’ educational needs.
A 2024 Brown University study unsurprisingly found an “overwhelming positive and significant effect” of increased instructional time on student achievement. We worry about student chronic absenteeism but by increasing the number of school holidays and replacing snow days with remote instruction, city schools are promoting absenteeism through a system-wide calendar that intentionally limits attendance!
Accepting that all families need not observe others’ religious holidays might be one source of resolution. These days plus mandated state and federal holidays now checkerboard the calendar, creating severe issues of continuity as well as quantity. One way to address this might be to engage an interfaith committee of clergy to agree that some religiously based system-wide holidays be eliminated from the school calendar.
It is understandable that in this case, as in other circumstances, some families will feel pressured to send their children to school rather than engage in observance. But chancellors regulations continue to require accommodation of these students’ and teachers’ need for religious absences, including protections against scheduling of high stakes tests or other unwarranted conflicts.
If elimination of some holidays is legally proscribed or too unpopular, the only other solution is to expand the school calendar, most likely before Labor Day when districts across the country and many New York charter schools are already open. This school year, Houston started school on Aug. 12, Chicago on Aug. 18, and Washington, D.C. on Aug. 25. Success Academy, New York’s largest charter school operator, started on Aug. 11.
Next year, Labor Day falls especially late, on Sept. 7, leaving Mamdani an entire week that month to introduce pre-Labor Day school to New York’s public school classrooms. Since summer camps have already closed, most families would not be unnecessarily inconvenienced by the change. The main impediment would be union agreement, a difficult but not impossible challenge for the new administration to overcome.
If those complaining about the loss of a day sledding with their kids are serious about their concerns and if we are all serious, as we should be, about remote instruction replacing in-person learning, then it is time to act by restoring snow days to the school calendar.
On the campaign trail Mamdani himself bemoaned the lack of snow days. Unless that was just a snow job, he must now solve the problem.
Bloomfield is professor of education leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center.
