According to NOAA, there is a 20 percent chance that St. Louis will have a White Christmas this year. Even though the odds are not great that we end up with a snowy winter, Assistant Principal for Academics Kevin Foy and the rest of the administration have been working on plans for possible snow days in the coming months.

“Obviously the best scenario is to not need any snow days,” said Foy. “But we aren’t so much in control of that, so when there are days that the snow is too bad, then we have to have a plan.”

There are a lot of different ways that Foy, Assistant Principal for Student Life Brock Kesterson and Principal Fr. Ian Gibbons SJ, are considering how to deal with snow days. Depending on when a snow day occurs, whether it is during exam week or in the middle of two block schedule days, Foy, Kesterson, and Gibbons could use a variety of different solutions.

“It’s possible that we could do a seven day period to make up for both an A and B day,” said Foy. “And it’s possible that we could push everything back. There isn’t a ‘we will always do it this way.’”

The SLUH community proved over the course of the pandemic that online school options could work as well.

“We’re still in the mode of things can be flexible,” said Foy. “We still have virtual options. We know that the online stuff works pretty well. We could go back to the Faber Day model where students stay at home, and everyone Zooms in. The problem with this option, from a teacher perspective, is if you created a certain experience for your A Day students, you may not be able to replicate that, virtually, on a B Day.”

Foy also presented the possibility of anticipating a winter storm, and calling multiple days as snow days.

Should a winter storm hit St. Louis, Kesterson and Gibbons would make the safety decision as to whether or not to hold a school day in-person. If it is determined that a snow day would work best for the safety of the SLUH community, Foy would make the choice to continue that day with virtual classes or call school off.

Last year, the abolishment of snow days was unpopular to say the least. Students spent their snow days on Zoom looking out their windows, wishing they could have slept in before sledding and building a snowman.

“Not having snow days last year was a bummer especially because it would have been some sense of  normalcy during Covid,” said junior Spencer Johnson. “If we get them again this year, I’ll enjoy the time off and catch up on rest.” 

While many students will take the time to rest and recuperate, others enjoy taking the opportunity to be charitable men for others in their communities.

“If we get snow days this year I will go back to shoveling all 607 houses' driveways in my county of Richmond Heights while making hot chocolate for all the kids in the neighborhood,” said junior Kyle Verzino.