Students in Watauga County use snow days to pursue the sports of skiing and snowboarding. While local participation may be done, ski slopes have experienced a record year from tourists.
In Watauga County, one of our major winter activities is skiing and snowboarding. Since the COVID pandemic began, virtual school days have been put into place. These remote learning days have impacted local students’ ability to hit the slopes.
Remote learning days are no longer required by state law. However Watauga uses them to maintain more control over the local calendar.
“Last school year the state required every school system in North Carolina to have five, and this year they are not requiring school systems to have any, but they are allowing most school systems to have up to five,” said the Watauga County School Superintendent, Scott Elliott. “But because we are in the mountains and have a lot of snow and get a lot of bad weather, we get some flexibility from the calendar. We get to start school a week earlier than other school systems do”
While this provides flexibility for the school system, it has created some challenges for local ski and snowboard businesses.
“We haven’t seen the local participation because there just haven’t been any days that it's been so bad that they haven’t had virtual school,” said Brad Moretz, President of Appalachian Ski Mountain. “It makes it a much more infrequent event to have a chance to go skiing.”
These remote learning days are helpful to some families because they allow students to no longer have to attend Saturday school and not to worry about Spring Break being canceled. Students will be able to get out of school closer to the time of other districts so they don’t have school cutting into summer break.
“Actually, one of the first things I heard when I came here eight years ago was from a group of parents who wanted us to utilize remote instruction instead of snow days, so that we didn’t miss so many days. Students would have some continuity with their learning, and so we did not get out of school in the middle of June every year,” stated Dr. Elliot. “So there are a lot of people who really like the fact that we are having remote instruction.”
Even with the benefits of remote learning days, they can be a challenge for many people including families who don’t have access to the internet or childcare. Local ski slope workers do not like these days because because they have forced a huge change in some Watauga winter traditions.
“It appears that Watauga has sort of lost what has been a multi-decade birthright,” stated Brad Moretz.
Although these days are not as fun as a regular snow day they do provide a great way to receive instruction more safely during bad weather.
“I don’t want to lose sight of the reason that we do it and also some of the benefits that maybe we’ve forgotten about,” said Dr. Elliot. “The reason that we do it is so that students don’t go a week or three or four days without any kind of contact with their teacher. It’s not adding just three or four days at the end of the year. If we've been out of school for several days in a row, it takes longer to get caught back up, from the reviewing and different things like that. So the continuity of instruction is the main thing.”
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