Virtual learning has become an essential part of learning during COVID-19 and because of this students can learn from home which means no more snow days. 

“There will be years where we have to take back vacation days because of the snow. We had to go a little bit later into the year. So many things had to be rescheduled or canceled, I think that’s all gone,” said Assistant Head of School for Student Leadership Mr. Ron Algeo.

The chance of having one or two snow days is still there, but we won’t have enough to cause some rescheduling of the year. A decision will be made the night before the snowstorm to keep the kids home for a virtual day. This helps to avoid students coming to school and having to leave early. 

“There’s a movement of, we should give the kids a snow day, kids enjoy what is one the great traditions of being a teacher and a kid,” Dean of Students Mr. Timothy Doughtery said.

Dougherty still believes in the idea of a snow day but thinks there should not be six or seven like Malvern has had in previous years.

Snow days have always caused problems with school, the goal in the future was to implement virtual school to solve these problems. 

 “You see what kind of havoc it wreaks when you have these snow days you’re trying to make up at the end of the year. You see public schools go through it as well. It can be crazy. We’re looking at this and saying there has to be a better way. So we have started to do some virtual stuff in the past. I think COVID just accelerated the timeline,” Algeo said.

Virtual learning has had an essential role at Malvern for these past months, virtual learning was going to be a part of learning with or without COVID. The ability to be virtual makes learning very flexible.

“I think we were always going in this direction, and I think it’s what you say one of the terrible beauties of technology that allows you to have access all the time. It allows you to be connected all the time. I think it was always going that way,” he said “I do believe there should be a snow day or two thrown in for kids once you start missing a lot of schools, though. It starts eating into the progress you’re making,” Dougherty said. 

At some point, virtual learning was going to take place on snow days, and snow days were going to be over. 

“So you have guys that go down the shore for the summer, they live down there with their families they work down. They don’t even have the option of taking a summer course. So guys would have to miss a week of summer school because their family was taking a vacation. For us, we thought that didn’t make any sense. Is there a way to make this a hybrid? So we are looking at doing that for the summer,” Algeo said

Being able to apply virtual learning to more than just snow days is very helpful for everyone and allows kids to take the classes they want without worrying about being at school.

“Can you have 1,2,3,4, or 5 international students who are taking classes remotely? I don’t know the answer to that but those are the questions we are asking. Students that are sick. We’ve had students in the past that were in the hospital. It was very difficult for them. Even the faculty to navigate through that when the student could not be at school,” Algeo said. 

Virtual learning does not need to be applied to just summer school and snow days. Unexpected stuff can happen and missing school for weeks is not good. So having the virtual option is helpful for students who are in the hospital. Medical needs have to be met for students who can’t leave the hospital or home for a couple of days or even weeks. Virtual learning keeps them in touch with school so they don’t fall behind. 

Eventually, snow days were going to come to an end. Virtual learning was going to take over. COVID-19 accelerated that process and pushed virtual learning into action. Virtual learning can be helpful to keep kids up to speed when they are sick, but it also kills the fun of the snow day.