This semester, Kentucky students have experienced several days off of school for both inclement weather and illness. The first scheduled week back from winter break was met with an ice and snow storm that brought as much as a foot of snow and an inch of ice to some parts of the state, which caused schools to call both traditional snow days and Non Traditional Instruction (NTI) days, for the rest of the week. Decisions regarding if NTI or traditional snow days would be used varied by district. . 

There were also several in-person school cancellations due to an outbreak of the flu and other illnesses at the end of January into the beginning of February. A surplus of teacher absences that could not sustain the required teacher to student ratio forced many districts to move to online instruction. Some school districts, such as Hardin County, LaRue County, Oldham County, Shelby County, Washington County, and Jefferson County utilized NTI days, while schools in areas such as Bullitt County, Elizabethtown, and Oldham County were closed completely on various days that week. 

Furthermore, just last week yet another snowstorm moved in, causing around 50 school districts to either close or move to virtual instruction.

There were several concerns among students as to if this amount of missed school would lead to an extended school year, but so far most districts have made the decision to only make up a few days. According to WDRB, “Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) has already used five of 10 non-traditional instruction (NTI) days Kentucky law allots for the school year. NTI days do not have to be made up. Snow days, however, when school is closed, have to be made up, if they are not forgiven by the school board.” The JCPS board decided this past Tuesday to only make up one day of school this year, extending the last day to Friday, May 23. This process is just an example of how most other districts are making decisions regarding the last day of school extension. 

The influx of NTI days seen this year has caused the proposition of Kentucky’s House Bill 737, which would eliminate NTI days as an option for districts when school cannot be conducted in person. According to WDRB, “State Rep. Steven Doan, R-District 69, said his constituents are "sick and tired of the NTI days." Others, including parents and some board members, expressed that rather than getting rid of NTI days altogether, it’s worth seeing how the practice could be improved.

This irregular amount of disruptions has been met with several controversial opinions, as we hear in the following roundtable of The New Edu’s team members, who gathered to talk about the impact of NTI, snow days, and more. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Isabella, duPont Manual High School‍

How do you all feel about all these NTI days? Are there benefits to them or are we just kind of sick of them? 

Innaree, Dunbar High School

I hate NTI days, because every time we have NTI days, I don't feel like doing anything, and I'm just sleeping and in my bed all day, and I just do my work in bed. And also, so many people Chat GPT for answers to all the assignments, and it feels like you're not being productive at all. 

Kevin, Elizabethtown High School‍

This might be kind of controversial, but I lowkey live for NTI days because I get to sleep in until like eight, and I start my school work then, and I usually finish by 12, so I just have the rest of the day free to myself.

Lucinda, Meade County High School

I love NTI days, and I think I'm definitely in the minority there. I'm also a homebody, so that could also be a part of it, but I just love them. I get all my work done in two or three hours, and then I can just spend the rest of my day doing things that I don't normally have time to do. I feel like it's always really nice when I unexpectedly have more time in my day, and I can kind of have a slower day. I will say, I don't like when it's so many after each other, like a whole week out. I love it when it's just like a random Wednesday though. I also feel really productive on NTI days, so I have a lot of fun with them.

Michelle, Elizabethtown High School‍

Today's our first NTI day, but our traditional snow days, as a senior, who's kind of going through senioritis right now, and I’m kind of burnt out from school, I feel like it's just kind of stress relieving, honestly, that we have an extra day off. A couple of my classes are a little bit faster-paced and there's definitely more work in those classes, so having that day off kind of alleviates some of that stress. Going to school for me is kind of draining sometimes, because I go to community college for one class, and then I go to the high school for the rest of my classes, so it can be draining. 

Maggie, duPont Manual High School

I definitely agree on one hand; it is really nice to have time to rest and recharge and get all the work done that you're needing to catch up on, but on the other hand, I know in JCPS, a lot of people including myself were missing school in the days leading up to the snow days for illness.  Personally, I've had a lot of trouble catching up with that work that I missed when I was sick without actually seeing my teachers and getting to be back in class. And I know a lot of other kids are going through that as well, so I think that's a big issue. 

Also, my mom went to my younger brother’s middle school parent-teacher conference and the teacher said the younger kids in middle school have not gotten back into the swing of things at all. They have had so much trouble getting back into being disciplined and sitting through class, and they haven't been able to because they are so irregularly going to school since then that they haven't been able to adjust their behavior or their work ethic to the normal school calendar again. And in a way, I can definitely relate to struggling to, you know, lock in again, and I think that's a big issue. 

Iris, duPont Manual High School

I definitely think that the NTI days are kind of a double-edged sword. I love waking up later and getting those few extra hours of sleep, because that's definitely needed. But on the other hand, I'm a person that completely relies on routine and schedule, and those days just break that routine. I really don't have that consistency, and I end up falling asleep or taking another nap, or being kind of unproductive just because of that break in routine, and I end up forgetting things and not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, because I have a certain place in my routine for that, and that's not happening. So I definitely think there's good things and there's bad things, but in my personal opinion, I think it's more of a negative thing.

Grace, Elizabethtown High School

I really like NTI because I missed school last week, and it's helping me get all my work caught up, and I also got to skip some tests today, so that's a plus. 

Will, Tates Creek High 

Even if we have NTI, we have to continue learning, so that means I have to take notes at home, even though there's not anyone to actually teach me what I'm reading and talking about. So I'll go back to school and they'll expect me to understand the curriculum that they weren't actually there to teach because I was just taking notes of a slideshow. And even if teachers do have Zoom hours, that time period in which you can catch those teachers is so irregular and short that usually by the time I have a question about the assignment, they're already closed. There's no hope for me. There's no time to stop and answer questions about what we just learned, and it just really breaks my spirit. I feel like I don't have time to understand. 

Maggie

‍I really relate to that. I feel like the work that we do during NTI days tends to be very monotonous and very difficult to wade through. For example, a teacher posted two hours of YouTube videos and then 13 pages of reading today. And I can get that done, but it's not going to be the same level of understanding and knowledge that I'd be getting if I was in class, getting to have a conversation about this, getting to learn about it through a different medium. And I find that really, really frustrating. 

And also that social aspect of not getting to see my friends every day, and not getting to interact with people as much, I find that really hard. I'm kind of just stuck at home all day without anything to do besides my work. I'm starting to go a little crazy, it's really rough.

Lucinda‍

 Yeah, building off of what Will was saying, in my AP classes, even if we have NTI or snow days, no matter what, that AP exam date isn't moving. So we have to continue our timeline, my teachers aren’t pushing this test back and aren’t extending the unit, you have to still learn it. So I think that it's really difficult when it's like that. I think that NTI is a really great alternative so that we don't have to add on days to the end of the school year if it's one day, but when it becomes, like, two or even three, I feel like it really starts to take a toll on education quality. 

Janvi, Elizabethtown High School

I like sleeping in and stuff, and I get to catch up on my work, but also I feel like a lot of the teachers just give busy work. And we're not learning in a classroom, so it's kind of frustrating to be doing busy work.

Will ‍

Another thing about NTI is that it also cancels all after school activities, which may not impact things like a club very much, but I do a sport, so I haven't gone to practice in like five days. And consistency is pretty important when it comes to a sport, and not being able to see my team for a long time has also got me pretty glum, you know, especially when a sport is built on teamwork and on seeing each other consistently, and on being able to depend on each other. 

And touching back on mental health, but also when it comes to any neuro divergences in general, it's just an unbalanced playing field. A lot of my friends who have ADHD or autism, when their whole routine is thrown off to the point where it's all under their control now, and they are responsible for it, it's unreasonable for some students. Not having a routine just generally ends up throwing me off because I end up procrastinating, because in my head, this is a weekend. It's not an NTI day, because there's no teachers here and I'm not in school. 

Charlie, Danville High School

My AP world teacher assigned a seven-minute Ed puzzle, and then my AP Psych teacher didn't even assign anything, so I feel like a lot of the teachers do nothing, or just kind of add in work that doesn't actually do anything. I feel like that's my main issue with NTI days, that a lot of the work is just busy work, posted just because the teacher had to post something. 

‍Isabella 

I actually will add on and say that for me, and a lot of my classes, it’s the opposite, and I feel like I'm getting more work than I would have gotten if I just went to school. We have 90 minute classes, yet [my teacher] is assigning me two and a half hours of work, and I don't really understand how you thought that would work. I also think teachers think, because we're at home, we're just going to have so much more time than we would have if we were at school. My AP Lit teacher was just like, oh, finish the book that he had originally said we were going to be reading for the rest of the rest of the month, but now we're supposed to just finish it before next class. But just because we're at home does not mean we can magically read faster than we would if we were in school. It's interesting to hear how different teachers handle it.

‍Lucinda

I think it's so interesting, just the spectrum of the assignments that are given. It feels like it's too small, like a 10 minute assignment, or it's a two hour assignment. It feels like there's no in between. It's almost like teachers don't really understand what NTI days are supposed to be either, it's kind of finding that balance, except nobody's found the balance. 

‍Maggie

I think this really relates to this idea of self paced work, which actually my eighth grade teacher participated in this study that he did on us over the whole year, which was the method of assigning ‘self-paced work’ but he essentially did nothing and called it a new kind of teaching. And he told us at the end of the year he and the other people doing the study observed that self-paced learning is so detrimental for so many kids. And basically what it does is for the four or five kids out of a class who are already making high grades and are already pretty proficient in that subject, they can stay at the top, but all the other students in that class fell so far behind and just suffer so much from it, and it's so ineffective. I don't know where that study is or what that was all about, but I think that is something I still think about now when I'm doing NTI being like, I have tried this out, and I know it doesn't work, and it's inherently inequitable. So I think it's a big problem.

‍Luisa, Boyle County High School

I would like to add on to the self-paced learning, because with me, I need to be timed– the time pressure makes me work a lot faster, and also gives me an idea of how much work I have to do. And a lot of the times when my AP [class] just gives me NTI work, since it's on my own, and self-paced, I put more time and effort into the work, but it's to the point where it also impacts how much time I have for my other classes. But if I was in a classroom setting, I could just see that this is due at the end of class, and I would just get it done and not worry too much about it. 

Maggie

I definitely relate to that. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I take such a long time on assignments. My AP World Teacher was assigning homework, and she said, ‘Oh, this should take 30 minutes’, and I spent like, two hours on it. I feel like I struggle so much with having to do independent work because I spend so long on it, and I get so stressed out about the little details. I feel like being able to do stuff in class and talk to my teacher about it, or talk to the people around me about it, is so good for me. So that is definitely a big part of my issues with NTI, and I appreciate you bringing that up.

Isabella

I will say one thing that's frustrating me currently about NTI is just when they actually call it. Me and some of my friends have resorted to going to the Facebook JCPS moms group because the actual school district won't tell us anything. And I just would like to know if I need to study for my Spanish test or not. And it's very frustrating. It's probably going to be like in the wee hours of the morning, and that's not helpful to anybody.

‍Lucinda

One last thing, I don’t know why we took away doing Google meets or Zoom meetings with NTI, because even just a 30 minute meeting where you're all together and you can check in with your teacher, and your teacher can explain something to you, this is what we’re learning; I feel like that's really helpful. And I think it's kind of a reasonable expectation. And I don't know why we threw that away, I think we should bring back the meetings.