Getting an extra week off of school might not have been on everyone’s 2025 bucket list, yet with the record-breaking snowstorm, that’s what happened. The three back-to-back-to-back snow days and then another day off later that week certainly led to many different reactions. For sophomore Isabella Beeton, she was more than excited to get some extra days off of school.
Although when it was time to return back, Beeton said she was not ready to drive on the roads. Overland Park alone had 11 inches of snow according to KMBC news after three days and the ice under it incited concern for young drivers.
“My neighborhood had a lot more ice and the snow that was kind of settled on top had become ice,” Beeton said. “For the Thursday that we went [back] to school, my mom took me because she didn’t trust me to be out on the roads.”
A safe return to school was important for the district, but it wasn’t an easy job. To determine if a snow day is needed, assistant principal and activities director Mallory Huseman said there are many steps the district takes in order to finalize their decision.
“A group of individuals at district level will meet, they typically look at forecasting a month out, weeks out, days out and so they kind of start conversations,” Huseman said. “Then, they regroup, whether it’s in person or a Zoom conference, to decide what’s in the best interest for students and staff.”
Once a snow day is official and students get the announcement, students can relax and enjoy a day off. Beeton said seeing lots of snow puts a smile on her face.
“It was kind of funny when my dog went out and all the way up to her stomach was in snow,” Beeton said. “It was exciting seeing how much snow we could get.”
Before Huseman had to worry about scheduling and getting students back to school, she said she remembers being able to relax and enjoy building things with the snow. Now, she and others work to get the school back into function starting with the main focus: parking lots.
“We had not just our custodial staff, but we have all of our maintenance staff. They work basically night and day to remove snow, put down salt for melting of ice,” Huseman said. “[It] was unique because they were combating the temperatures, so the salt doesn’t actually work at a certain temperature because it’s too cold — but the ice was so thick that they were outside just physically going out and crushing it and then scraping to get rid of it.”
Eventually, students were able to return back to a full week of school, which for Beeton and many students and teachers alike, was not easy.
“[School has] been harder since we started on a Monday … and having to adjust to a different sleep schedule [is not easy],” Beeton said. “I feel like in a good amount of my classes we are doing a lot more work or it feels sort of rushed because we weren’t there and we have to kind of fit [two weeks] into the [one] school week.”
Huseman said she knows snow days are like curveballs and affect certain classes more than others. However, she said the snow days mostly took away from planning for activities.
“Our Sweetheart is typically in February and it’s in January [this year] — I know StuCo really struggled with getting things ready and put together because of the snow days,” Huseman said. “We [also] had [our] theatre group going to the Kansas Thespians festival … and we wanted to do a send-off for them and to celebrate and we didn’t get the opportunity to do that.”
Yet, even with all the extra time off, Beeton said she was becoming bored but also not ready to go back to school. Nevertheless, out of the snow days the district has built into the schedule, almost all were used within the first week of school.
“I just really appreciate our maintenance crew at Southwest … they worked a lot of hours and I just really appreciate them coming in and doing what they did,” Huseman said. “They had a tall task and they handled it really well.”
