Neshaminy School District students have two snow days built into the calendar for the 2024-2025 school year. For teachers, however, additional days are added to the end of the school year calendar.
One of the known perks of winter for students may be having snow days off and two-hour delays without having to make up those days at the end of the school year. Teachers, however, are not in the same boat.
When snow days are announced, both students and teachers are allowed to stay home. However, teachers are expected to attend additional in-service days that are tacked on to the end of the 2024-2025 school year, concluding on June 13, 2025.
“I think that it’s unfair for [teachers] to need to come in when it’s summer even when students don’t need to make it up,” Neshaminy High School (NHS) senior Megan Webb explained.
These additional in-service days follow the protocols in the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers Agreement with the Neshaminy School District, being that a school year for teachers must be 189 days.
“As used herein, the term ‘Normal Work Year’ shall mean one hundred eighty-nine (189) days of service. Unless needed as a full student day to fulfill the required days of education for the state, the half days of the last day of the school year shall be used for purposes of close,” the agreement states.
According to Fox29 News Philadelphia, the Philadelphia region is predicted to get 17 inches of snow this year.
“Two storms this winter, however, are predicted to dump 6+ inches of powder on Philly, and snow could remain on the ground for a total of two weeks,” Fox 29 News Philadelphia shared on Jan. 1.
In relation to this, Neshaminy School District decided to provide students and teachers with two true “snow days”, free of instruction. Any days of school cancelation after these two days were used would be asynchronous learning. The first snow day was on Jan. 6, while neighboring school districts like Pennsbury and Bensalem chose to have an asynchronous learning day where teachers posted assignments for students to complete from home.
Though many may have mixed opinions about snow days versus asynchronous days, NHS Spanish teacher Diana Jennings shared her preference.
“[Having asynchronous days instead of snow days] would be the perfect scenario,” Jennings quoted.
Having used both snow days in the school year, if another one is necessary, students will be expected to do asynchronous learning, while teachers will also need to come in an additional day past June 13.
‘Nobody likes to be working for any date longer than the one already established. It’s more of a mental process,” Jennings stated. “We were able to enjoy those days during the winter time, we just have to pay them back.”
