We all got excited when, on February 1, principal Mr. Jason Markey tweeted, “Leyden High School will be closed tomorrow, Monday, February 2 due to the weather conditions. Please be safe. #leydenpride” We knew we’d get to sleep in and wouldn’t have to deal with all the school work until later.

But now, there’s been some thought about having a “Technology Day” if  school gets canceled.  It would consist of waking up in the morning and logging onto your chromebook and doing the work that your teacher would send to your email or other types of digital lessons. At first this seems like a good idea because then students don’t have to add days at the end. But, deeper consideration leads to this conclusion: a “Technology Day” just won’t work.

Leyden should stop considering the idea of a “Technology Day.” It will only cause problems for the students. They will not put in quality work they would be doing if they were in a school environment. Distractions–from social media to younger siblings–would have kids doing everything but the assigned work.

 All of the work that we would be doing on a Tech day would be via internet. So, the students would have a hard time focusing on what teachers had set up for us.  We would find ourselves opening a new tab on our computers of the most random thing: new shoes, sports, prom dresses, clothes. Additionally, our Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and PHHOTO apps would be blowing up with all the different things kids are doing on their day off of school. And no adult would be there to keep us focused.

Even if we could stay focused when we work, many students wouldn’t even be able to work. Many of us have responsibilities to do when school gets cancelled. Most of us will be shoveling multiple times during the day. Others have younger siblings that they must watch and take care of when school is cancelled. The constant disruption of the little kids running around would limit students ability to focus and get work done.

But let’s pretend the distractions were gone. The learning would still be poor. Students will not be able to have the one-on-one experiences with their teachers. Some students need their teachers to explain things further and ask questions that won’t always be able to be asked via email. If we were to have these work days when they cancel school, students would be given a lot of material to go over. Because teachers cannot give you a thorough explanation of the work, students would be loaded with lots of text and independent work. Also, few teachers would be able to design online learning that allows collaboration with other students. This gives students a disadvantage and causes lack of ideas when doing school work.

One exception to the educational value of this idea is AP students. They would benefit from “Technology Days”. The AP testing days are set nationally and do not change. So, when we lose days AP students lose valuable learning; the make up days at the end of the year don’t help.These students are are also paying to take the test and are trying to get the highest score possible. They generally take any work seriously.

Although “Technology Days” would benefit AP students, it would not work out for the majority of students. We would not be able to handle the responsibility of finishing all the work that teachers send, and that work would probably be pretty basic.  We will all be better off if the administration continues to send the tweet, close the doors, and extend the school year.