10 The Voyager
Opinion
January 2022
Should snow days melt away from school calendars? By ANDREW SHINKLE ‘22 Editor-in-Chief
T
here’s no other feeling like it. After a nervous evening of anticipating the weather forecast’s validity, you jolt awake in your pitch-dark bedroom and reach for the windowsill. As your vision comes into focus, it’s unmistakable — a thick blanket of snow has enveloped the outside world, creating a winter wonderland in your backyard. It’s calm and quiet outside, and you feel just as peaceful inside, as you realize that you’ll be staying home all day. Waking up on a snow day is one of the sweetest, most treasured experiences of youth and adolescence. However, technological advances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have placed their livelihood in danger. Ten years ago, snow days were called due to the perceived inability to safely transport students to and from school, as a result of excessive snow. Now that the pandemic has ushered in remote learning via Zoom as an easy, accessible alternative to in-class instruction, snow days have little practicality. Regardless, they still live on in many school district calendars, including Eastern’s. At least for the moment. U.S states have been attempting to institute at-home-learning on snow days for a number of years now, stretching long before the pandemic. Ohio and New Hampshire school districts have both run “blizzard bag days” for countless years; the idea is that students are given a full day’s worth of classwork either prior to the inclement weather, or remotely on their computers. Students are then assigned to complete the work at home before they return to the
building. These days count as attendance for the school year, which means that extra days won’t need to be tacked onto summer vacation. If other states have successfully replaced snow days with remote instruction, even before Zoom became a pandemic necessity, then why does Eastern still use them yearly? According to New Jersey state legislation, school districts that are not open for a minimum of 180 days per academic year lose all state funding and aid. Public schools cannot afford to lose their funding, so the 180 day requirement must be met. However, remote learning does not count towards the 180 days if the switch is made due to inclement weather. This was not the case last year, as Governor Murphy signed an executive bill that allowed remote learning for the entirety of the 2020-21 school year. But now, Zoom instruction can only count towards the 180-day mark if schools are closed for three or more days due to a public health emergency, such as the rampant spread of the Omicron variant. These limitations explain why remote learning isn’t allowed on the grounds of inclement weather in NJ, but things are much different just fifteen miles away in Philadelphia. On Friday, January 7th, Philadelphia’s public schools switched to remote learning due to significant snow accumulation. You may remember that at Eastern, we had a snow day on the same date. Why should Pennsylvania schools be allowed to pivot to online instruction due to inclement weather, while New Jersey schools are not? The two states border each other and share much of the same climate. The only real reason prohibiting the switch is outdated NJ state legislation. Before remote learning became main-
Many students look forward to snow days as much needed breaks from the daily school grind, but the pandemic has put them in danger. Photo by Andrew Shinkle’22/Canva.com stream, the only way to achieve meaningorder to keep the tradition and nostalgia ful instruction was to gather in-person at of snow days alive. On days with lighter school, and this still represents the ideal snow that is still enough to cancel in-pereducational environment. However, times son school, remote learning days should have changed, and technology has given be held. Then, for the truly massive snowus the luxury of learning from the comfort storms that roll around every once in a of our homes. In the event of insurmountwhile here in the Mid-Atlantic, true snow able snow accumulation, NJ schools days should be awarded. should be allowed to utilize remote learnBy only using one or two snow days ing to count towards the 180-day requireeach year, the education system wouldn’t ment. be disrupted as often, and, perhaps most Of course, there would be a massive importantly to kids, spring break and sumoutcry from parents and children alike if mer vacation may be extended. There’s this becomes a reality. The past few years also something to be said about moderahave completely disrupted our sense of tion; there’s a healthy balance between normalcy, and snow days have become work and play that would be achieved one of the few lights we can look towards with a give-and-take snow day system. in this time of darkness. Snow days should never be fully reThat’s why I suggest remote learning be moved, but there are benefits to reducing implemented on an intermediate basis, in their usage in NJ schools.
To B or not to B… that is our important question By ALANNA STEIN ‘24 Staff Reporter
E
astern students alike strive for that coveted “A” when completing projects and tests, but when what qualifies as an “A” differs from school to school, what does it really mean? At Eastern, we abide by an 8-point grade scale, meaning to earn an “A” in a class, you must receive anywhere between a 92 to 100. However, at schools in neighboring towns such as Cherry Hill East and West, Haddonfield High, Lenape, Shawnee, and Cherokee, students are awarded an “A” for grades ranging from 90 to 100. Unlike the other schools—who have followed this protocol for an extensive amount of time—Haddonfield High School recently switched to the 10-point grade scale in May 2021. While grading systems tend to be personalized based on district, is the twopoint difference truly fair? Is there a valid reason behind the differing scales? How do we benefit from an 8-point grade scale
vs. a 10-point grade scale? Unfortunately, no evidence was supplied to answer these seemingly perplexing questions. Even Eastern’s Director of Academic Programs and Student Performance, Dr. Borda, agrees that the extremely sought-after research is unfindable. Before our current grading system was implemented, no numerical value was attached to a student’s work. District policy was to only report letter grades rather than numerical grades, making the worth of an “A” relatively subjective. According to Dr. Borda, Eastern switched from letter grades to the 8-point scale between 1999 and 2003. Numerical grades proved to be more precise and efficient when calculating cumulative GPAs. Upon making the change, a 10-point scale wasn’t necessarily on the administration’s mind; the 8-point scale used to be more common and the favorable choice. Yet, while more schools make the switch to a 10-point scale, Dr. Borda feels unsure if a new system will truly benefit our school. “In education, we make changes hoping for an outcome. We make the change, it disrupts a lot of things, but
Eastern’s unusual grading system classifies grades ranging from 92 to 100 as an “A.” Photo from weareteachers.com
we don’t necessarily see the outcome we were hoping for,” states Dr. Borda in a recorded interview. Although Dr. Borda sees no advantage in any particular grade scale, she firmly believes that our current scale provides consistency. “We have had a consistent grading system for a very long time. Our parents, students, and families know and are comfortable with the system,” says Dr. Borda. But couldn’t one assert that the same parents, students, and families Dr. Borda mentioned were previously unfamiliar with the 8-point grade scale, so can we truly blame Eastern’s lack of change on the need for consistency? Though it may be challenging, we must embark on the ambitious journey of improving Eastern. Remote schooling simply proves that we, high school students, are capable of adapting to new protocols or systems. If a 10-point scale increases the number of students who earn Distinguished Honor Roll, then we can readily adjust. If a 10-point scale improves our comparability and competitiveness to neighboring schools, then we are prepared to make a beneficial transition. That being said, everything ultimately comes down to college. Students’ motives behind working towards high grades like an “A” stem from the want to attend an applaudable college. Therefore, Dr. Borda claims that colleges don’t even see an earned letter grade— transcripts primarily display the earned number grade. While transcripts show our unweighted final grades, they also show our weighted cumulative GPA— the most sacred statistic to many colleges. Dr. Borda reiterates that weighted calculations “...are a way of normalizing grades and determining what an ‘A’ is when students are com-
ing from very different schools.” Thus, is Eastern’s thought process that since letter grades hardly matter in the grand scheme of things, do they think that changing the grade scale is unnecessary? Even if colleges are ignorant to letter grades, our high school is not. Many accomplishments are based on letter grades, such as Distinguished Honor Roll and National Honors Society (NHS). To achieve Distinguished Honor Roll, a student must obtain an “A” or higher in every class. To be inducted into NHS, a student must have a cumulative GPA of an “A” or higher. However, if the grade scale was shifted to a 10-point scale, more students would receive these honors, as a broader range would be accepted. Upon receiving over 115 responses to a Google Form questioning if students have an issue with the current grading system, negative feedback greatly outweighed the positive responses. More than one hundred students voted yes to having a problem with the 8-point scale, while only twelve voted that the system is fine. The 90.4% of students disagreeing with Eastern’s grade scale proves that change is not a concept among the minority; change is something many of us strongly support. Further research regarding students’ opinions will be conducted to receive a more accurate representation of the student body. Maybe our 8-point grade scale results in higher-performing students. Maybe it leads to greater motivation and determination or even increases the rigor of Eastern’s academics. But if there is no clear evidence or research to support such a peculiar grading system, why is Eastern tightly clinging to the 8-point grade scale even if our closest competitors have already moved on?
