During the first week of February 2025, snow blanketed the Seattle area, with some regions receiving just a dusting, and others receiving close to a foot. The snowstorm forced UPrep to close Feb 5-7. Due to the closures, the school had its first-ever online snow days on Thursday and Friday of that week, using Zoom just like it did during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have this space where learning can continue, and we only have so many days in the semester,” Assistant Head of School for Academics Edward Billingslea said. “After that initial one day, we have decided that with the use of technology, we should go to Zoom to keep our learning going.”
Students like ninth grader Julian Cole have mixed reactions to online school, especially when it replaces the alternative day off.
“I really like in-person school, way more than online school,” Cole said. “Online school is incredibly inefficient and just feels way more boring and there are a lot more distractions.”
In a poll of 22 students across all four grades conducted by The Puma Press, 95.5% of students said that they preferred in-person school to online school, and 4.5% of students said that they didn’t have a preference.
Billingslea acknowledges that there are some advantages and disadvantages to online schooling on Zoom.
“The positive of Zoom is that we can continue to connect with students and faculty, and the negative of Zoom is that no one wants to sit in front of a laptop or screen for hours on end,” Billingslea said.
Because February 2025 was the first time UPrep conducted online school during snow days, some of their policies are still being finalized. Although Head of School Ronnie Codrington-Cazeau and the UPrep administration have said that after one day off school, online school will start, they haven’t created an official policy if there are multiple snow storms in one school year.
Even though schools such as UPrep do not like to call snow days because they can disrupt the academic and extracurricular calendars, Billingslea, served as the acting Head of School on Monday, February 3 (due to Codrington-Cazeau being off campus), stresses that safety is key.
“I think the first call we make is just about the safety of the roads. What are the buses doing? What’s going on in the different parts of Seattle? I’ve learned that we have different micro-climates that cause different weather conditions around the city,” Billingslea said. “Particularly for students that drive, we always prioritize safety. When school is open, we’re saying that it is safe around the school, but if it is not safe for you to get to school, please prioritize that.”
