How Snow Days Will Work At North Andover Schools Amid Pandemic

NORTH ANDOVER, MA — During a normal year, the news of a snow storm heading for NORTH Andover would bring on the prospect that school could be canceled. Amid the pandemic and with an online school system in place, that prospect in North Andover has dimmed.

This year, because of hybrid and distance learning models in place, the state has granted permission to districts to shift to a "distance learning day" instead of canceling in-person school because of inclement weather. This day will count as a day of school and will not need to be made up later.

In North Andover, schools will switch to remote learning, if the weather makes it difficult or unsafe for students and staff to go to school, the district said. But if there are power outages that affect online learning, the school system will cancel school; those days will have to be made up out of the five built-in make-up days at the end of the year.

Cancellation decisions will be made at a school level based on whether the school itself and a majority of households are without power.

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Either decision will be announced through typical snow day channels: voice recording, Twitter and a post on the district website, as well as postings on local Boston news channels.

The new channels have added "remote learning day" to their websites and TV tickers, where snow days are typically listed.

For a single snow day, the cohort hybrid schedule for that day will be used, with cohorts scheduled for in-person days learning synchronously via Google Meets and the remote cohorts working on Google Classroom assignments. If a snow day lasts multiple days, the full remote combined schedule will be used until students can return to school.

The district may also delay start times by one or two hours based on road conditions. Remote students will follow the same schedule as in-person students, and schools will dismiss at the regular time.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.