Rochester Public Schools Confusing Parents With Snow Day Decision

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Today is a confusing day for some Rochester Public Schools parents, including myself.  In December we were told that snow days would not exist for our distance learning kids this year and then at 5:44 am this morning we get a phone call stating the complete opposite.  Yes, I'm talking about the snow day.

Did I miss a memo somewhere? I have a middle-schooler and a high-schooler who have been distance learning for a full 365 days as of this week and the last I heard was that there were zero snow days happening for them.  In fact, that info is still listed on the Rochester Public Schools website and we even had a story about this very thing back in December that you can read here.

Posted on the Rochester Public Schools website right now from December 16th, 2020 is the following:

INCLEMENT WEATHER DAY PLAN DURING ALL DISTANCE LEARNING

We feel confident in our capacity to deliver instruction virtually to all of our students. The most compelling reason for closing schools is the safety of our students. In a normal year, all of our students would be attending school in-person. Due to the pandemic, the District has implemented a Safe Learning Plan that consists of distance learning. RPS has made significant investments in technology devices, connectivity, and professional development in order to efficiently deliver instruction to our students within these models. Following MDE guidance, the District will not need to cancel school, instead we will continue our distance learning model on days when transportation is canceled due to inclement weather. The District will be canceling transportation services on Distance Learning days.

Today, we received several forms of communication with the opposite information:

• It is a traditional snow day – no school online or in person.

A friend let me know that I did miss a memo.  I searched high and low all over my inbox for a few hours this morning and on the Rochester Public Schools, even with the words "inclement" and "snow" in the search on multiple occasions and this never showed up.  Thankful for the info sent my way and the link with the info that was sent out to families on February 2nd.  Below is part of the info that was shared:

UPDATED 2/2/21: Once the District shifts any of our learning models to full in-person, inclement weather days will resume as full inclement days (otherwise known as a traditional snow day) across all levels. This decision is made to align with MDE guidance from October 29 (i.e. If elementary schools moved to full in-person learning, inclement weather days would occur across all grades and learning models).

Now I need to figure out why that e-mail didn't show up in my inbox.

Since we have a snow day, go have fun, do some baking, and let your kids enjoy it.  If you can, go throw on your snow pants too, and go play in the fluffy white stuff.  The snow won't last long and we will soon be enjoying fun events in the summer heat like Thursdays Downtown!  See the update on that fun event for the summer and others below.

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