At the time of publication Geary County is under a severe weather storm warning with 4-8 inches of snow accumulation and a projected 1-3 inches over the course of the morning according to The National Weather Service.

The Blue Jay Online staff believes that USD 475 should have canceled school due to the inclement weather. Having school only hurts our academics and risks the safety of students and faculty.

According to research recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research it is better for student academic achievement to cancel school even if there is only moderate snow fall.

This is because students are more likely to be absent due to severe weather regardless of whether or not school has been canceled.

Days like today disadvantaged students in multiple ways. Some teachers do not go on with their lesson plans when a significant amount of students are absent. Because it is harder for teachers to get students caught up from their absences. This results in instructional time that is wasted. Other teachers do their lesson as planned, and that results in students falling behind the rest of the class.

Josh Goodman from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government studied the correlation of snow fall and test scores. He was quoted in a Vox article saying “When students return to school after a snow day, they have all missed exactly the same lesson,” he wrote. “Teachers can thus compensate by pushing all of their lesson plans back a day for the rest of the school year. This will have no effect on student achievement as measured by standardized tests, so long as the teacher’s planned schedule had included at least some instructional time devoted to subjects not on the tests.”

With these weather conditions transportation to and from school is potentially hazardous. Most faculty members commute from Manhattan and other surrounding communities. These drives are at least 20 minutes or more regularly, which exposes them to greater risks of a car accident.

Not only do these risks apply to teachers, but they apply to students as well. Students aren’t as experienced as adults are with driving in snowy conditions. When school is not canceled students who drive themselves in these conditions could potentially be in an auto accident.

The district might believe that they have our best interests at mind, but this is incorrect. We hope that the district reconsiders their stance the next time it snows. Our academic success and safety depends on it.

This post was edited 1/22/16 to insert hyperlinks for citation.