Despite everyone’s wishes, there was no snow day today. That didn’t stop many students from staying home – here in my IB2 Philosophy class we only have 40% attendance. While the loss of artificial light ten days ago was deemed a worthy enough event to justify cancelling school, the proper response to the serious risk of frostbite, pneumonia and death faced by anyone who tried to reach campus today was “take caution.”

Regardless of how high our tuition is most students desire, or at least profess to desire, less school rather than more. Private schools tend to have longer and more holidays. As the old joke goes, the more you pay the less you get. Yet beyond avoiding work the wish for a snow day has two unique motivators: the respect for bodily health and the love of winter tradition. The snow day is an ancient custom throughout northern societies that carries a deep spiritual significance.

Even if no snow day means angering the Gods in irreparable ways and sacrificing a few unlucky Y1s to the frost, the winter term is already the shortest of the year by far. In the administration’s defence, school has already been crushed into an incredibly tight time frame. There’s no universally recognized metric that can determine whether they should call a snow day based on the centimetres of snowfall in the past 24 hours. It’s a hard decision that can never please anyone. Imagine if the Board of Stewards had to decide – either choice they made would face criticism.

That being said we had a snow day last year for much less than this. The fire at Yonge and St. Clair got students a day off and a snowstorm did not; that is enough evidence for this publication to conclude that fire is a better element than snow. Ultimately the verdict should be up to you: let us know what you think about the snow day: