To prevent losing both a day of education and a future day off due to inclement weather, the Souderton Area School District is now offering flexible instruction days, also known as a FID.
On FIDs, the schoolwork is asynchronous and the assignments are made by teachers beforehand. Students downloaded their assignments before the FID, so that they would still be able to access and complete the assignments if their power went out, or if they did not have internet access.
“I like the idea, but I think going through the trouble of downloading everything is just too much work,” freshman Liara Patino said. “Other than that they’re okay.”
The district held its first FID on wednesday, December 16th.
Spanish teacher Brittany Mercado said that she thought “the day went well overall. There were some students that didn’t do their work, but they were the same students who don’t [do their work] normally.”
For some, the FID went along with how they prefer to work normally., “It was great. I like to do my work on my own terms, so not having a set time where I had to do the work helped,” senior Gabriel Thomson said.
Some people seemed to think that the FID was successful while others believe some improvements could be made.
“It was a good day, but I think having live classes would be better,” science teacher Karen Wolfe.
Mercado agreed that there could be live classes added as an improvement, but it was “nice” to have something like a snow day, while still doing work.
“I think if we do add live classes that we can allow the students whose power goes out to get a signed note from their parents explaining why they didn’t join the class,” Wolfe said. She believes this would make the day seem less “wasted.”
For online instruction students, it’s a bit different.
Freshman Makenzi Maguire said that “We had all the work we’d normally have, we just didn’t do live classes that day.”