CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: School Closures On Storm Days Debate

When winter storms shuttered every school in the Tamarack Valley School District five times last year, a district record, pupils simply remained home. A plan before the board would transform such days: classes would continue as an “online learning day,” with students logging in for abbreviated video lessons and assignments. Reaction among those affected has ranged from enthusiasm to outright disbelief.

Board chair Patricia Lindqvist regards the change as overdue. “Five lost days amount to an entire week of instruction,” she reasons, “and June offers no refuge, since provincial authorities fix the length of the school year.” Families possess the technology, and pupils mastered it during the pandemic; abandoning that competence would, in her view, be regrettable. She also points out that a shortened schedule asks comparatively little of households.

Marcus Oyelaran, a high school science teacher who heads the local teachers’ association, offers only partial support. Because Grades 11 and 12 face provincial examinations and suffer when closures accumulate, he would accept online days for them. Younger children are another matter. “A child of seven can’t endure a video lesson unsupervised, and parents on storm days are typically shovelling, working or both,” he points out. Teachers, meanwhile, would maintain duplicate lesson plans for negligible learning.

Sandra Kowalchuk, who lives on an acreage north of town, confronts a more elementary obstacle. “My connection fails whenever the wind rises, and three children share one laptop.” She applauds the concept, adding that she would enthusiastically endorse it if every household enjoyed the amenities available in town. Rural children, she fears, would be marked absent through no fault of their own.

Child psychologist Dr. Helen Moreau challenges the premise that a snow day is wasted. “Building a snow fort with the neighbours or baking with a grandparent is not nothing,” she protests, citing studies suggesting that one or two closures annually make little measurable difference, though a winter as punishing as the last alters the calculation. Even then, she doubts young children absorb much through a monitor, preferring that future calendars reserve two contingency days.

Having taught Grade 2 before retiring, I read this with mixed feelings. The board’s scheme strikes me as one that 6. Choose…asks too much of teachersoverlooks too many householdsundervalues an unplanned day offshortchanges students facing exams, which is precisely Ms. Kowalchuk’s complaint. Many of my former pupils lived out her way, and on any blustery morning I can picture half a class 7. Choose…out sledding in the driftspreoccupied with examinationswithout an adult beside themeffectively offline. I concede Ms. Lindqvist’s point about 8. Choose…the instruction at stakerural bandwidth strainchildren’s need for free playteachers’ extra preparation.

Surely, though, the better answer is Dr. Moreau’s notion to 9. Choose…make seniors log inlimit storm days to a pairbuild slack into the calendarcancel provincial exams, not parking six-year-olds before a laptop. As for Mr. Oyelaran’s compromise, restricting online days to 10. Choose…homes with fast internetteachers who volunteerthe youngest pupilsstudents nearest graduation seems eminently sensible, given what those students face in spring. Everyone else should be left to enjoy the snow.