When Will It Snow?

Going to boarding school occasionally has its disadvantages. For example, the middle schoolers at Arthur Morgan School almost never have a snow day. Since most of the students live right on campus and can walk from their boarding houses to the academic buildings, there is never a reason to cancel school. Even when 2009’s infamous Snowpocalypse covered our campus in over a foot of snow for a whole month, no days were canceled.

Making Their Own Snow Day

Our students always felt a little left out when all the local schools closed their doors on these wintery days and masses of kids spent their mornings sledding rather than studying. So our community created a new practice. Empowered to make changes to school rules and policies, students decided to give themselves one snow day a year. What’s even better is that they can call it on any day. It doesn’t even need to be snowing. As long as the community can agree by consensus, our students are allowed to cancel school for one whole day and do whatever they want.

Most years, the students do save their day for that one huge snowfall that covers everything in white. The excitement to sled down our local hills, ice skate on the pond, or have a snowball fight in the courtyard is too big of a draw to waste their day off on anything else.

No Snow Doesn’t Mean No Fun

Its January now and although winter still has a long way to go, I can see the students wondering if the snow will ever come. Winter is always a special time at AMS, even without snow. There are polar bear dips in the pond, board games by the wood stove, hikes to frozen waterfalls, and lots of steaming hot chocolate for snack. Students are beginning to plan and study for their 18 Day Field Trips that leave in just five short weeks while also preparing for our annual talent show, Octopus’s Garden. This year we added another event to our list of activities: a Celo Community wide trade-a-thon in which anyone can come trade their unused items for someone else’s.

Perhaps our students won’t be able to call an actual snow day this year. They may go swimming on their day off rather than sledding. Thankfully, we have lots of diversions. There is so much work to get done and plenty of activities to enjoy that maybe it’s good thing it isn’t snowing. Maybe a day off would just be a distraction from all the other fun stuff we have in store. Still it would be nice to just have one good sled ride down Falcon House’s hill.

-Nicholas Maldonado