Remember when snow days were magical? The crisp morning air, the winter wonderland scenery outside our windows, and the giggles of delighted children lugging their sleds to the park instead of their book bags to school? Thanks to the rise of remote learning, these traditional snow days haven’t been seen in New York since all the way back in 2019.
But, this February, students across the city were thrilled to hear that Mayor Mamdani had announced the first full-fledged snow day in nearly seven years!
Unlike the snow the city’s last major snowstorm produced, this snow was extra dense and compactable. Museum School Senior Helen Michelin and her little brother took advantage of this perfectly textured snow as “it was just like powdered sugar—perfect for making snowballs.” Though her muscles were sore from traversing the dense snow and being “pelted ruthlessly with snowballs” by her little brother, she loved walking around Prospect Park and admiring all the snowmen. “I even saw one made of five gigantic snowballs,” she said.
While the great outdoors beckoned the winter-lovers, others found the perfect snow day within the warmth and comfort of their own homes. Rather than braving the bitter winter weather to head outside, sophomore Josely Martinez saved her sense of adventure for her gaming time. To Josely, this unexpected day off served as a much-needed escape from reality and allowed her to catch up on some of her favorite video games: Red Dead Redemption and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Junior Maya Griffith also took this opportunity to chill indoors; when asked how she spent her day off, she said she “spent most of the day studying.” The reality of an unexpected snow day is that tests and quizzes will unavoidably be delayed, which means students may have to spend an hour or two of their free time studying, but Maya didn’t let studying consume her entire day off. She also spent some time making keychains, her favorite crafty activity.
Meanwhile, others did their best to venture into the snow, but found a more pleasant time indoors. Freshman Mone Aboshi braved the cold, too, but only briefly. “I stepped outside for ten minutes to feel the cold breeze,” she said, “but I went back indoors right away.” The winter chill may be refreshing for some, but for others, it can be truly brutal out there.
Though she spent her snow day in Florida due to flight cancellations, Ms. Mazzella said that it was “intelligent of the mayor to declare a snow day,” noting that he announced it early enough to “give parents time to plan instead of scrambling in the morning.” If the snow day were announced on the morning of the storm, students with long commutes likely would have left for school before they even found out it was cancelled, robbing students of everyone’s favorite snow day luxury: sleeping in.
If there’s one thing all students can agree on, it’s that the rare gift of a commute-less Monday can make your week infinitely better. The snow day even benefitted those who spent their day stranded in the airport or stuck in traffic, since it meant one less day worth of missing assignments to worry about. It was a win-win situation.
