Sartell St. Stephen School District Says Snow Days Will Be a Day Off for Students

(KNSI) — As St. Cloud Area School District 742 announces its plan for the first five weather-related closures this coming winter will be flex learning days for students, another local school district says snow days will be for enjoying the snow.

Sartell St. Stephen School District Superintendent Dr. Jeff Ridlehoover says District 742 can send every student home with a device, so if the kids need to go to the flex learning plan due to weather or some other reason, they can do that. As for Sartell St. Stephen, he says, “We currently do not have that capability for all of our students to have a device at home. And so our plans right now are not to go to a distance learning model during during snow days,” so snow days can be just that. “You know, I hope they go build a snowman and they go have have snowball fights safely in their in the yard with their neighbors and, build forts and things like that and be kids.”

Part of the fun of snow days he remembers from when he was younger was piling in front of the TV or huddling around the radio waiting, listening, and watching to see if your school or district had the day off, and “I think there’s still something to be said for that.”

He says the school calendar has 171 instructional days built into it, but the state only requires 165, so there is a buffer built-in for snow days before students have to make those days up on the back end.

KNSI has reached out to the Sauk Rapids-Rice School District regarding its plans for weather-related closures for the upcoming winter.

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