Say goodbye to snow make-up days and hello to FID days.  While in the moment, having to complete work on a snow day may seem annoying, in the overall scheme this will allow students not to have to return for a snow make-up day at a later time.    

As part of a pilot program during the 2014-15 school year, CASD utilized a new type of snow day called electronic days, better known as “e-Days.”  When school was canceled due to inclement weather, the district was able to have an e-day, where rather than having students come to school for a makeup day, they would complete a school day’s worth of work at home.   

Now starting this school year the district is able to utilize a similar type of days called Flexible Instructional Days (FID). 

“The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) approved the use of Flexible Instruction Days (FID) as an alternate form of instruction in place of a day otherwise canceled due to inclement weather or building emergency,” according to the CASD website. 

CHS has a total of six built-in snow days, already in a school year (this year, Dec. 23, Jan 20, Feb. 17, Mar. 13, Apr. 9, and Apr 13); however, if the winter brings an overwhelming amount of snowfall, we can now limit the possibility of having days added to the end of the school year.  

By having FID, these days will help to prevent this from happening.

 FID days allow students to get to experience working in a non-traditional workspace, learning to become flexible learners, which may even help in future employment situations.   

 These days can also help to prepare students for life outside of school, to become adaptable to complete work in a non-traditional workspace, such as your house.  

  “More and more companies are allowing, and even expecting employees to work from home, adding autonomy to work that any students from traditional background settings still haven’t explored,” explained Andrew Hekkila in an article by eLearning Industry.   

A challenge that may arise with FID days is if students are unable to access the internet from their house; however, the school has a solution for this possible problem. 

“If it is known that a student doesn’t have access to the internet, the teacher may provide something on hard copy to that student or prepare them to download things to their laptop, “said Stephaine Douglas, Director of digital learning and technology. 

Another aspect of FID days is that teachers will be notified by noon the day before a possible FID day, allowing teachers to prepare students on what the assignment will be. 

“For many teachers, maybe not all, they will have a chance to talk to students and say, ‘Looks like tomorrow might be a FID day; this is the type of activity I’m going to ask you to do, this is how you are going to access it,’” said Douglas. 

While this is not always possible, depending on the time in which the administrations decides the possibility of the district being closed the next day, if this is able to happen it can allow students to be prepared to continue to have school work the following day even in the event of a snow day.    

While so far this winter we have not experienced a huge amount of snowfall causing the district to be closed, FID days are ready and available in the case of such an event. 

Disclaimer: Articles designated as “Editorial” represent the views and opinions of the author, not the 2019-2020 Periscope staff, CHS/CASD administration, or the CHS student body.