It’s a sour taste for students in New York City, but one that was expected: the city announced that students will have remote learning Monday and not a traditional snow day.
The announcement Sunday comes as no surprise given that the nation’s largest school district officially ended it traditional snow day system when it began the 2022-23 school year. Rather than cancel school for the day, district officials implemented the remote learning system that the city developed and utilized throughout the pandemic.
Then mayor Eric Adams stated that it was important to provide stability for children given the enormous disruption the pandemic had caused to education nationwide. Some school districts in other states have done the same since adopting technology in 2020 to enable virtual learning.
The system has not been without issue. After a snowfall in 2024, the plan failed as many students, teachers, and administrators were unable to log into their accounts, a problem that city officials blamed on a technology contractor.
Mandani has not said if he supports a remote learning day rather than a traditional snow day, but admitted Thursday that he’ll never forget his own snow day sledding adventure as a teenager — that ended in a trip to the hospital.
“We hit the jump so well that I ended up in the front, and then my friend landed on my head, and I got a concussion and went to the hospital. And I turned out mostly OK,” said Mamdani.
Snow days were historically uncommon in New York City in any case, though they have been more frequent in the De Blasio administration than they were under Mayor Michael Bloomberg before him.