After the much-needed break from the stress of the end of first semester, students’ excitement was quickly depleted when they found out they would have to make up school on Feb. 21- Presidents Day.

“I did not think it was fair that they took away one of our holidays because the snow was not the students fault, therefore the school should just let us stay home,” senior Syed Ali said.

Due to the snow days last week, principals from all over the county have been given the option to extend grading and reporting timelines. “Due to weather-related cancellations, I have made the decision to extend the second quarter (and first semester) into next week. Teachers will have one WHITE day on Wednesday, February 2 and one RED day on Thursday, February 3,” Principal John Ponton said on the AHS website last week.

“I did not mind staying home the last week of the quarter, because regardless of how much time we lost, the school board extended the quarter for students,” junior Aney Altaf said.

Fairfax County only allows their schools to have three built-in snow days, making it almost impossible to go a year without having to make at least one of these days up. On the other hand, Prince William County Schools give their students eight built-in snow days; some would argue making it unfair to the FCPS students. As of right now, if we miss another day of school we will have to make it up again, while PWCS students still have two snow days left.

Aside from being a time for students to relax and take a break from school, Presidents Day Weekend is also a common time for families to go on vacations or look at colleges. Junior Kim Rowland favors FCPS’ decision and thinks the extra snow day should be made up at the end of the year instead of on Presidents Day. “I was planning on visiting a few colleges over [Presidents Day] weekend and now my parents are making me go to school so we have to reschedule our visits.”

On the other hand, some students feel differently and would rather end the school year on time as opposed to adding the extra days on at the end of the year.

“I would definitely rather make up the snow days now because at the end of the year all you want to do is leave, and I think adding snow days then would just make it more dreadful,” sophomore Zack Lalande said.

“I don’t think it’s fair that another county so close to [FCPS] can have over twice as many snow days as we do,” Rowland said.

Presidents Day is scheduled to be a red day and although the student’s reactions differ, this is what they will have to live with. The debate over whether we should make snow days up during the year or at the end of the year will continue to surfarce until FCPS grants a sufficient amount of snow days.