By Alexandria Webb
This past week, Grand Rapids has experienced some cold and ferocious weather, with temps dipping as low as 6 degrees, and snow piling up as high as ten inches in some parts of the city, according to the National Weather Service. This weather resulted in Grand Rapids Community College canceling classes and events on Monday, Tuesday, and now Friday. Friday is expected to have a wind chill of -28 degrees.
While the adverse weather is disrupting GRCC classes, students report that they are taking advantage of the snow days.
“I actually studied. I had a lot of work I wanted to catch up on so I used it to put into my work,” said Miley Arreguin, 18, of Grand Rapids.
While others saw the snow days as a time to relax.
“I went out with my boyfriend, which probably was not good, because it was very bad out, but I was also able to relax for a second, so that’s good too,” said Justice Dyson, 20, of Caledonia.
Some students were hoping to extend this day off into Wednesday and Thursday.
“Oh I took it as a day to relax, I did nothing. I was praying each day there was another snow day after that,” said Damien Amor, 18, of Wyoming.
GRCC did end up resuming the classes on Wednesday and Thursday, to which left some students discussing whether or not classes should have been canceled.
“Honestly, I think that they could have honestly canceled a couple more days because of how bad the snow has been,” Dyson said. “I think they should make more calls on snow days, because if you look around any other place, schools are canceled and everything, so they could definitely do something better with that.”
Other students agreed that the weather called for snow days, and wondered why the rest were not.
“I believe we should have called off. I don’t get it, like, the roads are terrible, and I don’t know. Most importantly should be student safety,” said Viktoriia Debeliuk, 22, of Grandville.
As the weather conditions continued to worsen on Thursday, there was continuous agreement among commuting students that Wednesday and Thursday should have been canceled.
“I do believe today (Thursday) was worse than yesterday so I do think that it could have been canceled today because some people do commute farther than I do.” Arreguin said.
But calling a snow day is not an exact science. According to the GRCC Emergency Closing Procedures, GRCC Police and Facilities personnel assess campus and road conditions, and consider additional information from the city, county, and state to decide if classes should be cancelled. Then the GRCC Chief of Police (or designee) contacts the College President (or designee) and a decision is made. If the decision to delay or close is made, the Communications Department is notified and students are contacted by text, phone and email. Students can learn more about the GRCC Emergency Closing Procedures online.
Students did express how the snow days did mess up their schedules, as they had only been back to school for one week before the snow disrupted their routine.
G Herold, 25, of Grand Rapids, said the weather interruptions have been stressful and overwhelming.
“I mean, just, like, so much is being thrown at you from everybody all the time, and you’re just, like, I don’t know. It’s a lot of information the first and second week back,” Herold said. “There’s a lot of expectations and it can definitely be pretty overwhelming.”.
The snow days have resulted in deadline confusion for some students.
“…Some assignments were still due on snow days,” Amor said. “I was like ‘oh I didn’t know that’ so that threw me off a little bit.”
Not only with the scheduling of classes and assignments but students had to adjust when they had to leave for campus and account for the snow.
“I’m the person that has to leave earlier to get to class,” Arreguin said. “My class today was at 1:30 p.m. and I left at noon in time, just in case I was a little late. I had about 20 minutes spared, but even then I shouldn’t have to put that much time out of my day just to come here.”
Collegiate reporter Karalynn Davis contributed to this report.
