As the winter season approaches, Maine schools will once again be confronted with what to do about inclement weather. Increasingly many districts are making use of “remote learning” as an alternative to the traditional “snow day.” Implicit in the choice is the equivalency of in-person and remote instruction. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since the weather is unpredictable, teachers and students learn they are going remote only hours before they are expected to meet online. Preparation for such a shift is limited at best. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was the dismal failure of online instruction. To now employ the very strategy responsible for the educational decline of countless numbers of students is akin to educational malpractice.

Yes, we are all anxious to enjoy what Maine has to offer in the summer months, but we owe it to the taxpayers and students to pursue such a goal responsibly. Why do we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to improve educational infrastructure statewide if we don’t value having our kids being present? 

Any school that has equity as a core value would be hard pressed to explain how the most vulnerable students in our population will not disproportionally be affected by using remote instruction. 

If getting out in early June is the objective, why not pare back on vacation time during the school year? Whatever the pathway might be for an early June exit, remote “non-learning” days should not be part of the mix.

Rick Biskup
Freeport