Frequent snow days taking a toll on southern Manitoba students, educators fear

In her 32 years as an educational assistant in southern Manitoba, Val Wiebe says she's never seen as many snow days as she hasthis year.

Known as "Val the Weather Gal" around the Border Land School Division because of her ability to predict snow days, Wiebeworries the repeated absences may be taking a toll on the elementary students she works with.

"They're missing school and they are wanting to be there, and we are missing it too," she said. "I feel they're missing out a lot. They're not progressing as fast as they should."

This winter, repeated heavy snowfalls, along with frequent extreme cold warnings, have led to multiple school cancellations in rural Manitoba.

Just north of Border Land, Seine River School Divisionco-superintendentSimon Laplante says the eight snow days his division has hadso far this year is the highest numberanyone can remember in a single winter.

"That's a lot of time for the kids to be out of school and concerns have been expressed from parents and trustees, everybody," said Laplante, whose division covers 15 schools along the Seine River southeast of Winnipeg.

While technology nowallows students to keep learning virtually on days when it's not safe to go to school, he sayschildren learn better with in-person instruction.

The school calendar doesn't have room for make-up days to let studentscatch up on what they miss, Laplante said. The division'sfive professional development days are not an option, he says, because staff need the time to do their own learning.

Laplante says the only way the division can make up the eight days lost to snowy weather is for the province to add more days to the school year.

But a provincial spokesperson says that isn't going to happen.

"The legislative/regulatory framework provides for incidental closures for reasons such as this," the spokesperson wrote in an email.

"The department does not have expectations that these days be made up and is not currently planning to extend the school year."

Although teachers and staff in Seine River are doing their best to make the most of the shortened year, Laplantefeels student learning is suffering.

Amid the continuing challenges presented by the pandemic, he says staff have noticed some students strugglingwith mental health issues as a result of all the school days missed.

"The beauty of snow days is when you have one or two per year, it's like a bonus.But when you have eight, that's no more fun kids want to be with kids," Laplante said.

On a lighter note, Wiebe says she's correctly predicted each snow day this year, based on her observations of thebehaviour of prairie chickens.

And for what it's worth, she expects to seeanother snow day in her region for Friday.