Due to the recent snow days, the Essex High School calendar has been amended to include an extra A day in the schedule. 

The EWSD School District has had 4 snow days this year, and the majority of these snow days have been on A days. This has led to planning schedules being off balance for many teachers. 

This week, both Thursday and Friday will be A days. March 17th, which was originally supposed to be a B day, will instead become an A day due to the recent snow days, which fell on majority A days. 

The schedule will proceed as usual, with March 20th, the next Monday, remaining as an A day. 

This change was to give teachers and students a way to catch up on the learning lost for A day classes. 

“The shift in schedule is beneficial for many students that have missed out on learning due to previous weather-related closures,” said Jamie Gowdy, an EHS English teacher. “I have spoken with several teachers and students that are appreciative of the opportunity to make up for lost time with their A day classes.” 

Some teachers feel that this would be a great opportunity to get their B day and A day classes back in sync. But, there is another side to this issue however. This increase, although it makes up for lost A days, means that there will be a large gap in between B day classes. 

“B day classes that meet on an already abbreviated Wednesday schedule (3/15) will not meet again until the following Tuesday (3/21),” Gowdy said. “My A day grade 9 English students will have three consecutive lessons (3/16, 3/17, 3/20) while my B day grade 9 English students will not meet for almost a week’s time between lessons (3/15, 3/21).” 

In the past, the A/B schedule has not been changed, and in the event of a snow day, the schedule will remain fixed. For example, if a snow day falls on an A day, the next day will be a B day instead of making up the last A day. This is due to certain staff members that only come into school on either A or B days. This change of adding a day as opposed to flipping the A/B sequence each time there is a snow day was done to make up for an A day while also mitigating staff schedule changes. 

Teachers were notified via email about this change on March 9th. 

“Thankfully, the change in schedule was communicated with ample time for teachers to plan appropriately,” Gowdy said.  

The schedule will return to normal next week.