by Leah Lindemann

January started off with the winter weather in full swing, causing Oak Hills to close 4 times due to either snow or cold. While the snow days are great, giving students and staff extra time to sleep in and watch Netflix, the free days are becoming limited fast. It won’t be long before we have to come in to start making them up. In order to avoid the dreadful make up days, Blizzard Bags have been put into place to help keep students at home during horrible weather, while still maintaining an education.

Blizzard Bags were created by the Ohio Department of Education around three years ago. The winter of 2015 was a really bad season and lots of school days were to be made up. At the time, five was the maximum amount of days a school was allowed off due to weather. During that winter season schools in Cincinnati went far beyond the allotted 5 days. To help with the problem, many schools had students come in on days they were normally off, such as Presidents Day, Good Friday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to make up lost education time.  Additionally, school districts added on days at the end of the school year where needed. The reaction from people was negative since no students wanted to come in to make up days at the end of the school year on scheduled off days

Consequently, the idea of Blizzards Bags was born. Now, anytime there is a cold day, teachers have to come in, unlike students, to create lesson plans. However, students are required to remain at home. Most classes in Oak Hills High School have Google Classroom where most of the work can be turned in, so teachers make an assignment that is relevant to what they are teaching and it is due the following week. The new principal, Mr. Hunt says, “We want kids learning and to be in school as much as possible, but we also want kids to be safe on extremely cold days, bad road conditions days”. The maximum number of Blizzard Bags each year is a grand total of three. So far this year, the school has only used one Blizzards Bag and we have used three out of a total of five calamity days. The difference between snow days and cold days is basically in the name. If the temperature are too low and affects the students in the morning that have to walk or ride the bus, then a cold day would be advised. Snow days are when it actually snows or there is ice on the roads. Teachers attend on cold days whereas both the students and staff stay home on snow days.  Students are frazzled about the Blizzard Bags since they popped up out of nowhere recently.  However, it must be noted that by completing the blizzard bags, it could potentially help alleviate making up days at the end of the year. Mr. Hunt hasn’t gotten any feedback of the Blizzard Bags from either students, teachers, or parents. Mr .Brandt with the school administrators said that any days that will need to be made up will occur at the end of the school year. Let’s hope for a warmer February!