NTI days are a product of the pandemic. Originally, they were designed to be a temporary two week measure, but as two weeks turned into a month and a month into a year, schools believed that they had demonstrated they were an effective way to substitute in-person learning. So, when the pandemic measures ended and students began to return back to school, it was decided to replace the traditional snow day with the NTI day in order to justify no longer having to make up the day. This decision met initial push back from teachers and students, but nevertheless, NTI days persisted. Although the initial resistance to NTI days has faded, the negative opinions have not.
When asked, people tend to have a negative opinion on NTI. However, when asked what it should be replaced with, they seem to hesitate to come up with a satisfactory answer. Some respond by saying we should return to the old system of traditional snow days, but most people, especially seniors, turn away from this due to the fact that these days have to be made up, which could delay graduation. Others say that while they have a strong dislike for the system, it is a necessary evil, saying that while its effectiveness is questionable, it is the only way to prevent severe weather from disrupting the school schedule.
People’s opinion on NTI’s effect on younger grades is unanimous: NTI has a negative effect on their education because there is a greater number of students who do not pay attention in comparison to a normal school make-up day. However, there is a disagreement in respondents over the severity of this effect. Some respondents think that this effect is true of all students, just more true in some rather than others, but some respondents, like Jacob Stewart (a senior), feel differently. He stated, “It goes to two extremes, right? Some kids just slack off because it’s NTI. Others, the more nerdy kids, hear their school stress NTI to prevent those kids from slacking off, and it goes past those kids and hits them.”
The general consensus around a potential return to traditional snow days is that it would be an overall positive change despite the added make-up days. It would lead to a better education for the students who do not pay attention during NTI and require in-person teaching for other reasons. This would lead to less stress for students who do pay attention and for teachers who are forced to create a lesson plan compatible with NTI’s constraints on short notice. Some students also expressed a nostalgia for snow days, like Anna Emedi (a junior) saying that “waking up to the relief of seeing snow in the morning” was an important formative moment in her childhood.
Overall, people agree that NTI days, in their current form, require reform. However ,whenever it comes to specifics, NTI becomes a lesser of many evils. They would like to get rid of NTI altogether but this causes make-up days to disorganize the school schedule. They would also like to ensure a quality education during NTI for students but this is difficult without placing stress on teachers to produce a lesson plan last minute. This dynamic of reforming NTI presenting drawbacks is likely the very reason that it still exists. The post-COVID administrators who developed NTI likely went through this very thought process and came to the same conclusion, that NTI is a lesser of many evils.