Starting the 2024 to 2025 school year, the SPS school district has created new rules for snow days. These changes will affect students in preschool on the second day school is canceled, and students in K-12 on the fourth day.
Students in preschool, kindergarten, and grades first through eighth will be given an Alternative Method of Instruction (AMI) packet early in the year, with assignments to be completed for each possible snow day. For high school students, the AMI assignments will be available on Canvas each snow day, posted by the teacher, and expected to be completed by the end of the day.
According to Springfield News-Leader, when school is canceled, students must complete the daily AMI assignments in order to be counted as present for that “school” day by their teachers.
This new policy could lead to many problems for families of elementary school students. Parents already struggle to find childcare on snow days, but with this new rule, they would struggle in many other ways. Parents would be expected to find care, go through a day of work, and then come home and help their child with homework, or else their kid would be counted absent.
Some families don’t have the internet available to them at their house, or any way to gain access to it. While the district provides hotspots for students without access to the internet, these “Kajeets” have a maximum of 500MB a day which would allow for about five hours on the WiFi. they could be even shorter depending on what the student is doing with the WiFi. This could also cause problems for high school students who need the internet to be able to log onto Canvas and complete the AMI assignments for the day.
Students need to keep a high attendance percentage to be able to participate in school dances, be exempt from finals, and have their first choice of a parking spot. Keeping their attendance percentage high would be difficult if students are penalized and counted absent for not having the resources to complete AMI assignments on days when school is canceled.
