Spencer Johnson
Connor Schutte stands tall next to a snow man he built with friends.
As temperatures hit record lows and snow continues to fall, Pleasant Valley has dealt with numerous cancellations leaving students in a time crunch to finish out the school year.
With an average of 15.4 inches of snowfall and wind gusts ranging from 30-50 MPH, snowdrifts have caused many accidents and lengthy traffic delays. Additionally, windchill temperatures have reached as low as -30 degrees, freezing any unsalted roads. Jan 6-12 went on record as the snowiest week in the Quad Cities.
Pleasant Valley is not alone in deeming it unsafe for students to travel. Throughout the Quad Cities, school districts have faced an alarming amount of cancellations due to blizzard like conditions.
For Pleasant Valley students, these snow days happened to fall in the middle of finals, creating difficulties studying for a test with a seemingly ever changing date.
Senior Connor Schutte saw these challenges arise in his own schedule. “I would study all night only to find out I had another week until the actual test. It felt like a waste of time preparing that far in advance,” he said.
These snow day procedures not only postponed semester finals but reduced the amount of time teachers have to prepare their students for AP exams come early May. Having already missed Jan. 11 and 12, followed by two late starts exactly one week later, student’s chances of passing this college level exam saw a setback.
Many teachers took it upon themselves to bridge this gap. Seeing the increased pressure in his own classroom, AP Macroeconomics teacher Philip George adapted to fit the required material in the given days.
“The AP Macro class test is on May 10 no matter what, meaning I have to cover the whole curriculum before then. I had to make some adjustments to cut out the material I knew would be not quite as valuable in preparation of the AP exam,” he said.
George is one of many AP teachers who feels the impact of missing school is detrimental to student’s likelihood of passing the exam. “Every student has the opportunity, if they score well on the AP test, to earn college credit, so I didn’t like the idea that it extended this already stressful time period for students,” he continued.
AP tests provide students with the potential to save both tremendous amounts of time and money in college. However, many students are fearful of seeing the opportunity fade away.
Schutte, an AP Environmental Science student, reflected on this possibility. “These test credits would get me a big jump start on some basic environmental science classes that I could maybe move past in order to get to a higher level or more major specific ones. It matters to me specifically because I want to do this in college,” he explained.
As students eagerly anticipated their return to the classroom, the snow provided a unique opportunity to pass the time.
Schutte spontaneously decided to spend his days out in the snow. “On my days off I built a snowman and played football outside with my friends,” he said, reminding his fellow students to stop and enjoy this once in a lifetime snowfall.