NYC public schools will be remote Tuesday due to snowstorm

New York City public schools will shift to remote learning Tuesday due to a snowstorm expected to dump up to 8 inches of snow, and possibly more, on the city and surrounding areas.

Mayor Eric Adams announced the decision just after 10 a.m. Monday. All after-school programs Tuesday will also be canceled, education officials said.

We're expecting winter weather overnight tonight which could lead to 5-8 inches of snow with locally higher amounts by the morning. As a result, all @NYCSchools will move to remote learning tomorrow.

We will have more updates throughout the day — continue to follow @notifynyc… https://t.co/UxP010QX1M

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) February 12, 2024

“Long gone are the days of just a snow day and everybody just has the day off,” Schools Chancellor David Banks said at a midday press conference.

He said students would participate in "synchronous learning," meaning they “will show up online with their teacher at the same time they would normally do it in school and have a regular session … much of the way it would be if they already were in school.”

“Our students, we expect from them to be fully engaged,” he said.

Their connection, however, might also be tested. Officials with Con Edison, Optimum and Spectrum sent out advisories on Monday warning of possible power outages, bringing in additional crews to manage the storm.

"The snow and winds can cause trees and branches to fall onto power lines and bring those lines down, causing customers to lose service and creating a safety hazard," Con Ed spokesperson Allan Drury said in a statement. "In addition, the melting snow can carry road salt into manholes. The salty water makes contact with underground electric delivery cables, possibly causing service problems for customers served by the underground system."

In recent months, the city's education department has distributed laptops and asked schools to prepare for remote learning. Schools ran a remote drill in November where families sought to log on for remote classes.

Banks said the school system was "more than prepared" for going fully remote due to the expected snowstorm.

All Catholic elementary schools in the city and northern suburbs will have a "traditional snow day" Tuesday, with no classes held, the Archdiocese of New York said. High schools in the archdiocese operate independently and will make their own decisions about closures, according to Catholic Church officials.

As news of the remote day reached public school parents, some said it felt too early to make the call. Others said the decision revived anxiety about children's learning challenges during the pandemic, when students attended class either partially or fully remote.

“This policy just triggers so much pandemic-era PTSD when we are all having to pretend that it made sense to have our 4-year-olds on Zoom while we were also working in the same space, just so that administrators could say school happened when it really didn’t,” said Heidi Fischer, a parent of two students in Park Slope. “Snow days were not a problem that needed to be fixed,” she added.

Adams defended the decision to conduct school online, citing student learning losses during the pandemic that the city is still trying to reverse.

“COVID took months if not years away from the education and socialization of our children,” he said at the press conference. “We need to minimize how many days kids are just sitting home making snowmen, like I did, and we need to catch up."

But remote learning during the pandemic also laid bare the inequities students face in access to computers and the internet. Parents who do not speak English and students with disabilities also struggled with the shift.

School Chancellor Banks said help would be available for any parents figuring out how to use the technology. And Adams said families should persevere against any challenges.

“If you are a parent and you are not willing to navigate a computer for your child, that’s a sad commentary,” the mayor said. “Showing our children that difficulties come and we overcome that, that’s what it’s all about. You can’t tell me [my] mommy took me with her arthritic knees on a snow day and you are frustrated about logging on to a computer."

"That’s not acceptable to me," he continued. "Our children must learn, they fell behind, we need to catch up.”

Whether to call a school snow day has always been a political quagmire for the city's elected officials.

In the past year, the question of closing schools has come up during other weather situations, including in June, when heavy wildfire smoke from Canada forced people to stay indoors, and in September, when heavy rain caused flooding around the city.

Following the pandemic, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio said remote learning meant snow days would be a “thing of the past.” Students immediately registered their protests.

On Monday, Banks said families should prepare for an “exciting day tomorrow," adding that he expected school to resume as normal on Wednesday.

“We don’t want kids to not have fun," he said. "I'm not a grinch. But we do want them to be actively engaged in school and get the most out of it.”

A meteorologist for the National Weather Service told Gothamist early Monday that the forecast remained fluid. Precipitation is expected to begin Monday night, with snow falling during the Tuesday morning commute.

The city says it will issue a travel advisory for Monday night into Tuesday and has activated its winter weather emergency plan.

Alternate side parking has been suspended for Tuesday, but parking meters will remain in effect, according to the city transportation department.

This story has been updated with additional information.