One Wisconsin school district's answer to a big storm is 'digital snow day'

As school leaders around the state Sunday were scheduling snow days for Monday's winter storm, the superintendent in a Sheboygan County district had a different plan: a digital snow day.

Parents were told they could come to the Random Lake schools on Sunday to make sure their students had their digital devices with a plan to make Monday a day of digital learning from their homes.   

It's unclear if Random Lake's "digital snow day" is the first of its kind in the state. The district began preparing for one about three years ago when the state Department of Public Instruction started questioning whether there were more productive alternatives to traditional snow days.

For Random Lake, Monday was the rollout, after the district scheduled a traditional snow day during an earlier storm last week. Regular classes resumed Tuesday, but Superintendent Michael Trimberger said the district was prepared to replicate Monday's digital snow day throughout the week in case of extreme weather.

“The vision of the school district of Random Lake is to give students a distinct advantage,” Trimberger said.

Through Facebook pages and learning apps, students were able to connect with their teachers online. Trimberger said it was important that students work on their regular curriculum. 

"We didn't want this to just be some random, time-filling assignment," Trimberger said. "It should be things they would be doing if they were sitting in the classroom today."

For first-graders at Random Lake, this meant getting online to watch teacher Krystal Vanden Heuvel hold up, spell and pronounce words on Facebook Live. 

Vanden Heuvel, a first-grade teacher at Random Lake Elementary School, has been teaching for eight years. She also has two children attending Random Lake Schools. Her day Monday began by watching her sixth-grade daughter start her online work as well as introducing her own students to their schedule for the day. 

"It is 8:30 in the morning and at this time, if we were at school, you would be coming in, hanging up your stuff and getting ready for your morning work," Vanden Heuvel said in the video. 

Vanden Heuvel said a digital snow day is beneficial because it helps keep her students' minds active and they are able to remember more without interrupting their learning schedule. She also said it was a great way to get parents to be active participants in their children's education. 

Heather Steinhaus, the parent of a kindergartner and second-grader, said her daughter woke up bright and early, excited about getting online. 

"She wanted to race downstairs and hop on the computer right away," Steinhaus said. Her second-grader, Lilly, knew how to get to all of her programs without her help.

One of her assignments was to read and post a selfie with her favorite book from home.

"She is a Harry Potter nut," Steinhaus said.

Lilly posted her selfie with her Harry Potter book on Seesaw, a digital learning app, and wrote about why she loved the book. Her music class was replaced by watching a Youtube video, engaging in lyrics and dancing.

Steinhaus graduated from Random Lake High School in 2009.

"It's really cool to see how they've taken this shift in technology and focused it on what is going to be best for the kids," Steinhaus said. 

Dona Idt said her first-grader had a folder in her backpack since last Thursday, when the district had a traditional snow day, with information for parents about steps to take if they had a digital snow day. 

Idt said teachers found a way to get creative with their curriculum. One of her children had to take a picture playing in the snow and write a story about it. Idt said this program is important because it gets her children engaged instead of sitting around all day. 

Trimberger said he had reports of glitches, such as problems connecting to the internet. He said there were many different work-offline options students could take advantage of if they ran into internet issues.

"We know there are going to be those gaps," Trimberger said. "We are not doing this to try to punish anybody. We are doing this to do something innovative." 

Michelle Schefgen, a K4 teacher, said the school has been talking about rolling out a digital snow day since she arrived three years ago. Schefgen said there was training after school for parents and caregivers on how to best help adapt children to the technology. 

Other school districts, she said, should replicate what is happening at Random Lake. "Especially in Wisconsin, when you never know what the weather is going to be," Schefgen said. 

Schefgen said she is always hesitant to call off school, because being even one day behind takes a toll on her students. It now feels like they aren't losing a day of instruction, she said.

"It is a little bit different, but a lot of times, trying something different is more exciting, too," Schefgen said.

This week, Wisconsin was preparing for record-breaking, frigid temperatures. Trimberger said he didn't know how many snow days the district would have to call yet, but he knew the teachers and students would be prepared to stay home. 

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The marker of a successful digital learning day for Random Lake School District is 80 percent participation. Trimberger said they will have to go back to state DPI officials to assess whether the trial digital snow days were efficient by looking at logins and assessments.

Where most schools would have to add a day to the end of their school year, Random Lake's digital snow day would count as a full school day.

“We are going to learn as much from this process as the kids are,” Trimberger said.