Students found themselves home this week for not just one, but two snow days, putting to test the new snow day rules. 

“We announced going into this semester that our protocol would be, in the case of inclement weather, we would have a virtual asynchronous day,” said Principal Ian Gibbons, S.J. “We leave it up to the faculty of how they want to use that asynchronous part. They have the option of saying, ‘for us, it's just a snow day and you can take the day off.’ For others, it can be sort of like (last) spring and projects in that regard.” 

Members of the SLUH community felt the decision was a good one, especially with the roads.

“I feel like yesterday was especially good that they had a snow day,” said senior Patrick Gannon. “I knew there was snow in the forecast but I didn’t know it would be that much.” 

Students found that, even with the asynchronous assignments, their workload was still reduced. 

“It (the workload) was definitely less than a normal school day,” said JP Torrack. “I think it was more than asynchronous from last year but we had homework because we had school the next day on top of the normal schoolwork.” 

“It was a good balance for me. I did some work for all my classes but I got done with my work so early I was able to relax a lot,” said Gannon. “I was happy that Mr. Steingruby offered the Zoom to teach us live because I felt like it was easier, especially for math, to have that live structure.”

“I think this asynchronous expectation—if you're going to give work it has to be posted by this time and there can be no mandatory zoom—I think that's a great compromise,” said theology teacher Lindsay Kelleher of the new system. 

With the extra time, Gannon and Unseth found some time to rest.

“Today after I finished everything I went and got coffee and relaxed a lot for the rest of the day,” said Gannon. 

“I went out in the snow, I played with my dog, (and) I shoveled some parts of my driveway,” said Torrack.

The schedule was also helpful to teachers who may have other responsibilities pushed on them by the snow, especially for Kelleher, who had to take care of her two young boys alone when her husband, also a teacher, had to teach synchronously.

“Thinking about (two teachers) teaching from home—one synchronous one not—all of a sudden became really complicated when our boys’ school, Holy Cross Academy, also called a snow day and we had two kids under five at home,” said Kelleher. 

Determining whether or not the school will have a snow day begins with Gibbons heading out on the roads around four in the morning. 

“I will look and drive around the campus, then usually on 40 out to 170 or 270, take a couple of exits and see how the conditions are there and getting back to campus,” said Gibbons. 

Then, he confers with other members of the Principal’s Snow Chain, a collective of Catholic High School principals who go out in their respective communities to check on road conditions. As the only principal who lives in the City, Gibbons is often responsible for reporting on the conditions of the roads in and around SLUH. The principals help give him perspective on all areas of the metropolitan area like Illinois, South County, St. Charles, and more. He will then confer with other SLUH leaders like Assistant Principal for Student Life Brock Kesterson, and make the final determination by 5:30. 

While Gibbons understands that some might be antsy to return to school, he felt he needed to put safety first and be cautious.  

“At some point, I know faculty and even students get tired of snow days and they want to keep moving. … There's only so many days you want to be cooped up in your house, even if you can make a snowman outside,” said Gibbons.  “I'm hyper aware that you're at some point people will want this to stop … you can't just ignore the fact that there's dangerous conditions on the roads.”  

Gibbons stressed that it is important to not get hung up on having two snow days in a row, but rather look at each individual circumstance carefully.

 “Each day is an individual event, and it's either safe or it's not safe by my best judgment so if we'd had five snow days in a row, and day six appears not to be safe—using our metrics, then we have a snow day. We don't just say, ‘buck up guys see you on campus,’—that's not the way that I would deal with inclement weather.”

Gibbons understands we are not out of the woods yet, as extremely cold temperatures are predicted at least through the end of the week.