They worried there would never be another snow day

They did it.

Maybe it was the collective magic of all the inside-out pajamas and ritualistic ice-cube flushing. Or the sheer exhaustion of a nearly two-year quasi-digital pandemic existence made it happen.

Whatever the reason, the kids won. And one of the soul-crushing, potential outcomes of our national deep dive into virtual learning during the pandemic - the end of snow days - did not come to pass.

"Snow Day!!!" said thousands of kids across the Eastern Seaboard, as what was supposed to be the first school day of 2022 became a day off.

There was the quiet fall of fat snowflakes, snowball fights and hot cocoa - a nostalgic turn and a salve in these upside-down times.

"True snow days are rare and I appreciate my daughter getting the chance to go outside and enjoy it, instead of sitting at the table all day doing Zoom calls," said Hyattsville, Maryland, father Brian Minter.

His 9-year-old is a student in a Prince George's County school, where students will be learning virtually until mid-January because of the spike in coronavirus infections. Even though they would be online anyway, the school district declared an old-school snow day.

"I don't want our teachers or school staff on the roads or trying to manage teaching while dealing with their own kids," Minter said. "Remote school is so hard on kids and educators; I'm glad PGCPS extended a grace day."

Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

It was a surprise decision by the school system and it got some guff on social media from the hardcore folks who didn't understand why kids going to school online needed a snow day.

Because what Prince George's County was doing - a brief return to pandemic, virtual school - makes sense. And once students and teachers got into the groove of online learning, shouldn't education be like the U.S. Postal Service, where "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" would stop knowledge from being delivered to young minds. (Well, online school did become like the Postal Service - the flailing one that's $87 million in the hole, with a high failure-to-deliver rate.) Virtual school was a mixed bag, with high costs for digital retrofitting that didn't reach everyone. Millions of students fell behind and studies showed the most vulnerable were hardest hit. Report cards had record numbers of Fs and thousands of students simply dropped out.

Educators weren't convinced that going virtual would be an easy answer for things like snow days.

Some schools hadn't planned for it and teachers and students didn't go into winter break with all the equipment needed to go virtual. Other school districts understood how difficult it is for teachers to hold online classes while their own small children are at home. A snow day made more sense for the districts that were planning for in-person school.

Teachers and school administrators put an exclamation mark on some of their school closure announcements:

"Old school snow day - no virtual! Enjoy an extra vacation day!" wrote Miss G.

"Enjoy another snow day! There will NOT be any virtual learning scheduled," proclaimed the Holy Spirit School in Annandale, Virginia.

But for every winner, there is almost always a loser. This time, it was parents, families and caretakers who shouldered yet another responsibility with school closures.

Because virtual work went on as planned, and parents who finally got their work lives back when kids physically returned to school were whiplashed with the return of rowdy snow kids with no online class and let's-kick-off-2022 Zoom meetings with the boss.

Richard Seroter, a tech bigwig out in Washington state, had his work day whacked by a Seattle snow day.

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened," Seroter wrote on Twitter, attributing that to both: "Obi-Wan Kenobi and every parent in this district who heard the 1st day back to school was canceled due to snow"

A huge percentage of these parents also battled coronavirus infections over winter break as D.C. became the nation's omicron variant epicenter. (That's what we did for the 12 days of Christmas … "four coronavirus tests, three Motrin, two toilets full …").

So yet another curveball for families who have been stretched to the max may not feel all that hot chocolaty.

"On this snowy Monday, schools up and down the East Coast are closing," HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge tweeted. "And while for many young ones, a snow day is a treasured memory unlike any other, some children rely on their schools for meals, clean water, and a warm place to spend the day."

True, snow days are another way to realize and understand the disparity and division around us. And the work we have ahead of us before we can all enjoy the giddiness of that school announcement.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• He was her eyesight. She was his everything.
• Want to support the troops --- Really?
• As Afghanistan falls, a haunting question faces military families: Why did we do all this?
• A shifting economy has gotten a helicopter generation of teens to embrace work. Just in time
• This fighter pilot and working mom saw a UFO. For real
• Evil geniuses of the People!? Cyberattacks against big corporations hurt the little guy the most
• Trump Plaza was blown up in Atlantic City, and D.C.'s 1st Amendment display is in pieces
• Back to class might not mean back to socializing
• Does the pandemic mean the end of snow days, too?
• To get votes, families are cutting deals
• A nation less divided than it seems
• Vacation shaming travels far and fast
• Meet the 16 year-old who created Bird Bot, which is disrupting a global market
• The woman behind Roe v. Wade reveals in soon to be aired documentary she was a fraud --- others will probably call her much worse
• The weekend when we all had enough and went back outside
• The streets are empty, but Home Depot isn't
• 'Animal Crossing' is 'Fortnite' for moms. The video game couldn't have come at a better time
• 'This can't be the end:' How small gestures can help small businesses in a big way
• Will coronavirus intimacy lead to a baby boom? Or a divorce tsunami?
• This scammer called the wrong guy asking for money
• High schools are starting to bet on esports --- to engage and motivate
• Washington's Worst civic idea ever? Giving regular people power to issue parking tickets
• Washington's city of strivers, and the places they sob
• Do all those kids really like eggs? Or do they just like fame?
• Trump and the 25th Amendment: Why it was written and what it can't do
• The IRS seized $59,000 from a gas station owner. They still refuse to give it back
• Breast-feeding case is a win for fathers, formula
• Nazis flags in Charlottesville were an affront to WWII veterans. And they fought back
• A 13-year-old's online fantasies turn fatal