Navigating Winter Weather: Remote Learning Policies in Pittsburgh Public Schools
School districts, including Pittsburgh Public Schools, are grappling with the challenges posed by increasingly unpredictable winter weather, which is pushing school calendars to their limits. With traditional snow days becoming a thing of the past, districts are turning to remote learning as a solution to maintain instructional time while prioritizing student safety.
The Shift to Remote Learning
Pittsburgh Public Schools has officially exhausted all built-in snow days. Several other districts are either in the same position or rapidly approaching it. From here on out, any weather-related closure will mean remote instruction, not to be confused with flexible instruction days, or FID, which used to be capped by the state. Thanks to Act 56, districts now have the option to shift to remote learning without any limit on the number of days, as long as instruction is delivered.
Chartiers-Houston Superintendent Gary Peiffer explained that there is no application required for remote days. According to Peiffer, deciding to implement remote learning is difficult because there are so many things impacting it. However, the priority is always caution and safety, particularly the fear that somebody could be injured.
Districts note that the governor has previously waived the requirement to make up missed school days during extreme weather, especially with a state of emergency declared. Peiffer said that there may be some forgiveness of days over the that 900, 990 hours based on the emergency declaration. Last month’s historic snowstorm sent schools across Allegheny County online, in some cases for an entire week.
Impact of Remote Learning
WESA tracked remote learning across the region as crews worked to clean up snow-covered roads in the days that followed the winter storm. On Friday, Jan. 30, 33 school districts and charter schools - more than half of public schools countywide - opted for remote learning.
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While some students and families welcome these remote days as a continuation of classroom lessons, others find that online and asynchronous instruction means missing the essential services they rely on to access their right to public education, which is protected by federal law.
Pam Harbin, a former Pittsburgh Public Schools board member who runs the parent support hotline offered by the Education Rights Network, a parent advocacy group based in the city, emphasized the unequal impact of remote learning. Harbin said that they heard from so many families on their hotlines during remote learning, and the stories show us that remote learning doesn't affect all students equally. It lands hardest on the students who are already the most vulnerable.
State Requirements and Flexibility
Pennsylvania schools can offer remote or virtual instruction as long as they meet the number of school days or instructional hours required by state law, according to Department of Education spokesperson Erin James. Schools must provide students at least 180 days of instruction, or 900 hours of instruction for kindergarten and elementary students, and 990 hours of instruction for secondary students.
State law allows schools the discretion to configure their school year however they’d like, James said, as long as they continue to meet all state academic standards and students’ individual instructional needs.
However, Harbin says not all instructional hours are created equal. Remote learning across the region varied greatly during the snowstorm fallout, with some schools teaching students over live video, while others prepared lesson packets for students to complete on their own time. Harbin said that those are completely different experiences.
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Mitigating the Negative Impacts
Research indicates that remote learning during the pandemic was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps between high-poverty and low-poverty schools, as well as by race. However, other studies suggest that shorter, more temporary disruptions to in-person learning, such as snow days or teacher strikes of less than two weeks, do not lead to significant learning declines.
Harbin emphasized the importance of careful planning to meet the needs of students with disabilities and other vulnerable groups when schools transition to online learning. She stated that schools that go online without carefully considering how they will meet the needs of students with disabilities and other vulnerable groups are setting families up to struggle. PPS is still making up the more than 600,000 hours of learning time students with disabilities missed out on during the pandemic. More learning days lost, Harbin said, could add to that total.
According to Harbin, the law is clear: if a student with a disability can't participate in or benefit from the way instruction is being delivered, the district is breaking its legal promise to that child and the family.
The commonwealth’s Department of Education advises that, prior to making instructional changes, schools should consider how they will impact special education programs, access to meals provided in school and before- and after-school care. Some districts, like Deer Lakes and Sto-Rox school districts, offered families grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches while schools were operating remotely.
Hetal Dhagat, a senior attorney with the Education Law Center in Pittsburgh, noted that schools that have pre-planned for those situations are those where the students end up being the most successful. Dhagat also suggested that schools around the region would be prepared for these disruptions if they met with families in advance.
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In the days following the recent winter storm, the Boys and Girls Clubs opened two of its clubhouses, in Millvale and Somerset, to working families who needed childcare while schools were remote. Kara Petrosky, the organization’s vice president of programs, explained that when they are in our clubhouses for the flexible instruction days, they have that hands-on support from our staff, and they also have that in-person social connection with their peers, which enhances that learning experience for them. Where the program’s facilities couldn’t open, staff reached out to students to make sure they had support while online.
Petrosky explained that the pandemic really showed that the lack of social connection had a significant impact on the mental health of our teens. To make sure that they're okay and to help support them in ways that they could right through that social connection was really important and continues to be important.
Flexible Instruction Days vs. Remote Learning
In 2019, state lawmakers revised the state’s school code to allow districts to take up to five flexible instruction days each school year, to be used during weather emergencies and other disruptions. These days can be online or offline, or some combination of the two. Before enacting a flexible instruction day, districts must first provide the state with an implementation plan, examples of lesson plans and get their school board’s sign-off.
About a quarter of Allegheny County schools took at least one flexible instruction day after last month’s storm, according to WESA’s tracking. Many other districts, however, announced simply that schools would be operating remotely, without pointing to a specific, state-approved flexible instruction plan. Steel Valley, Gateway and Sto-Rox school districts switched between the two, taking flexible instruction days on Wednesday, Jan. 28 and remote learning days later that same week.
The Department of Education has issued little guidance pertaining to the rules districts must follow when they want to implement remote learning beyond their five allowed flexible instruction days. A presentation from the department’s School Services Office last year states only that schools “may vary instructional time models, with the use of virtual or remote learning, if approved by the governing body of the entity, and if instruction is provided by certified educators.”
When asked what policies regulate remote or virtual learning, Department of Education officials pointed only to the state code outlining the required instructional hours and days schools must provide. Districts could satisfy those requirements by extending their school calendar into the summer.
However, James Fogarty with the nonprofit A+ Schools, said that there's a big fiscal cost if you have to extend the school year by a few days, and you're paying your staff to do that as well. Fogarty said having the ability to use virtual instruction flexibly makes sense for districts given the tightening budgets they face, despite the downsides. Fogarty stated that he do think, at times, it's sort of a necessary evil that we have to kind of address within the context of the current policies that we have at a state level.
Harbin said she would like to see the state expand the number of flexible instruction days schools are allowed to take, so that schools would be held to the same standards during remote learning as they are on flexible instruction days. Harbin explained that flexible instruction days work because they require planning, board authorization, limits on the number of days and annual reporting to the Department of Education. There's public notice and accountability built in.
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