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Will snow days stick around this year? School districts discuss NTI vs. days off

We asked our local school districts how they plan to approach snow days versus virtual learning. Their answers were split.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After a year of NTI, will students be expected to go virtual on weather days or get the day off? We asked a number of school districts how they planned to approach upcoming snow days.

New Albany-Floyd Schools says both options are on the table, while Greater Clark County Schools says any day students are kept home will be e-learning days.

Down in Hardin County, the initial plan will be to use NTI days if they are available. Districts only have 10 of those this year.

"However, the situation will dictate that if 14" of snow falls, or it's going to 10-degrees-below-zero for a week and power is out, students can't get online, teachers can't get online, we probably won't use NTI for that week.  Every situation is different," John Wright, the communications specialist with Hardin County Schools said.

Spencer County Schools answered a bit different than most.

"Spencer County School District has never found NTI to be a preferred method for delivering instruction," Chuck Abell, the assistant superintendent said. "The quality of instructional during NTI is not the same as what we can do face to face.  Therefore, we have never used them for snow days.  I anticipate that being the same again this year.  We typically miss 4-7 days due to snow and those days can easily be made up throughout the year or at the end.  Now, if we have a unusual winter where we have a significant number of days we would  probably consider NTI as an option so not to extend the year well into the summer months."

We also checked in with JCPS.

"One of the things we want to make sure of that's challenging, is ensuring if we are going to do an NTI day that every child has a laptop or computer in their hand," Dr. Marty Pollio said. "If it is a one day scenario, without warning, we won't have the opportunity to get those to students like we did with NTI with the summer, or the two weeks leading into the spring break last year, where we handed out all of those Chromebooks."

Dr. Pollio says snow days will be a school board discussion in the winter months, but for now, you can expect them to stick around.

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