As the winter days approach their end for Hinsdale South High School, students and teachers have different opinions on the disruption to class that E-Learning snow days have had, and whether or not we should add more school days to the school year. 

Rend Sunbulli, a freshman at HSHS said, “I don’t like that some classes move on so students don’t get to understand the material better and because of the e-learning days, sometimes we miss out on fun activities in class, but I dislike the idea of more school days being added.” 

Yacine Ouchen, also a freshman, has a different opinion on this matter. “I think that they shouldn’t make us do E-Learning and instead, add more school days to the school year. I also think that e-learning is a waste of a day because I feel like I got a lot more done at school than at home.”

Staff at Hinsdale South also have something to say.

“I absolutely love e-learning days!” Alexandra Fosco, a teacher in the math department, said. “I am appreciative that we live in a world where we are able to still have school remotely opposed to making up the days at the end of the year. I get to have my morning coffee on the couch, which is my favorite thing to do!” 

Fosco explains how she manages her plans. “As a teacher, I do my best to not teach new content on these days. For this reason, I will adjust my unit calendars to make it a ‘practice’ day and assign some sort of review activity. Normally, there is enough ‘buffer’ time in the unit where this is not an issue.” 

The sudden removal of excess days that were present in past years is a controversial topic. Fosco explains her stance.

“I do not think we should have extra school days added to the school year as long as there are not an excessive amount of e-learning days,” Fosco said. “I currently do not teach an AP course, but know these courses have strict timelines and require all content to be covered, regardless of the number of school days. I can imagine that these courses would suffer if there were 5+ e-learning days, as that is an entire week of school. However, it is the students’ responsibility to make sure they are engaged during e-learning days and completing the assignments.” 

Although students and teachers may have different opinions on this subject, one thing for sure is that the interruption to class because of these emergency learning days have impacted the plans for each class and affected the learning for the students.