The Frederick County Board of Education last discussed the topic in October and decided not to give it the green light until it collected more feedback from the community.
At that point, the plan — which would give students asynchronous assignments to complete either virtually or on paper during up to three snow days — still needed approval from the state.
In a countywide email sent Thursday, the district said it had secured that approval and would present "an additional update" at the next board meeting on Jan. 11.
No asynchronous virtual days will occur before that date, the email said.
"If schools need to be closed due to inclement weather between now and then, it would lead to traditional inclement weather days with no instruction," the message said.
The last day of school for FCPS students is currently set for June 1. Without virtual snow days, each inclement weather day the school system uses would tack a day on to the school year — for up to five days.
Having students complete some work on a few snow days per year could "mitigate disruption to learning mid-year, minimize additional days at the end of the school year when instruction may be less meaningful and keep students connected," FCPS' email on Thursday said.
"Assignments would be available with or without the use of technology and can be completed on a family's schedule," the message said. "Attendance would be taken via log of students accessing courses via Schoology and through the completion of assigned work."
At a school board meeting in October, FCPS officials reviewed survey results showing how 2,300 respondents felt about the proposal.
Of those, about two-thirds — 1,512 — supported the idea. The other 760 were opposed.
Those who were opposed mainly fell into two camps, the results showed. Some didn't like the idea of infringing on the tradition of snow days, while others said they'd resist the district embracing anything that resembled pandemic-era virtual learning.
The district has said the idea would be most useful in the case of significant snowstorms, when schools close for multiple days in a row.
Ideally, officials said, the virtual snow days would be planned a few days in advance.
© 2022 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
