Remnants of the COVID-19 pandemic not only damaged Colorado students’ ability to learn but also changed the way many schools function around the state — including getting rid of snow days.
Now when a snowstorm causes schools to close, instead of bundling up and running to the nearest sledding hill, many Colorado students have to open their laptops for a day of online learning instead.
But for 12-year-old Emily Beckman, that needed to change.
“One day at school, a teacher asked what the greatest invention in the world was, and I said that it was snow days and most of my friends agreed,” Beckman said. “And we were talking and then we heard that we only get two and the rest are e-learning. So I decided to make a petition.”
That was in November, now her petition has garnered almost 3,500 signatures and the attention of her school district’s superintendent.
Her request was simple: “Make the first six snow days of the year, which are already built into the D20 calendar, traditional snow days for all grades,” the petition reads. “This will not change the last day of school and will allow kids to be kids on these days.”
Just a little over a month later, plus a meeting with the school board, and lots of handmade pins and T-shirts, Emily's petition has succeeded. On Jan. 24, Academy School District 20 officially announced the change in their snow day policy.
For the remainder of the school year, “if another two weather-related closures are necessary, they will be treated as traditional snow days for all grade levels,” the district said in a statement.
The district said it will honor Emily’s petition and make the first six snow closures traditional snow days next school year.
According to Emily’s dad, Jeremy Beckman, Emily has always had the “activist bug.” He says that he first started her willingness to champion causes close to her heart shortly after she started attending School in the Woods, a nature-based magnet school in their district.
“She had a protest in her PE class,” said Beckman. “She was mad that the boys were being mean to [the girls] in dodgeball. So she organized all the girls to sit in dodgeball until the boys agreed to be nice to them.”
Emily said she doesn’t think her activism work will end anytime soon.
“When my brother went to sixth grade, instead of letting them do a whole class book report about the Hunger Games, they took it away and had them do another book…” she said. “But I might do a petition about that … so we're allowed to do the Hunger Games as a class together.”
For now, the 12 year old says she’s just happy her and her classmates will have their relaxing snow days back.
“I love that snow days are just a day where you can get an unexpected break from school and I love the nights before how kids are talking,” Emily told CPR News. “They say stuff like, ‘Oh, make sure to put something right by your windowsill or put a spoon under your pillow and sleep with your pajamas inside out. And then you get to sleep in that day — which is amazing and you just have a free day to do whatever you want.”
CPR News reached out to Academy School District 20, but administrators have not responded to requests for comment.
