Texas experienced record low temperatures and snowfall in mid-February. What many have been calling the “snowpocalypse” caused Greenhill to shut down for a week, leading to fewer days off later in the year.

At the beginning of the new year, Greenhill Administration added a few three-day weekends to the calendar.

“Mr. Hark and the administrative team saw the stress and amount of work that both teachers and students were putting in, and noticed fatigue of online students, in person students and Greenhill all around,” Upper School Dean of Students, Jack Oros said. “They decided that if they put in some COVID holidays, it would just give us all a chance to breathe.”

The first extra day off was Friday before the already three-day weekend from Martin Luther King Jr. Day. These days off continued throughout January,

Friday, Feb. 12 was off, as part of the four-day break that students are given every year, but this year, it took a quite lengthy turn.

The snowstorm hit on Feb. 13, causing sporadic power outages around Dallas, flooding, and damage to homes. These circumstances made it difficult for many Greenhill community members to attend school (both in person or online).

The four day break ended on Tuesday, Feb. 16, but became the first day off in an entire week without classroom instruction for all Greenhill students. Cancellation announcements occurred daily to establish the plan for the next day.

“With five days in a row that we missed, there is just so much content that anywhere from Lower School to Upper School, we need to cover,” Oros said. “The option of going later into the summer was on the table but would be inconvenient for students and teachers alike. Seniors would especially be impacted by that for the week after their last week on campus is full of their senior activities to complete their Greenhill tenure.

The final decision was to eliminate the COVID holidays to make up for the four days of lost instruction due to the snowstorm. This would add at least four more days to the schedule up to the end of the year.

In the new schedule changes, there are more gold days than green days because when the original schedule was made to have the holidays, there were a few back-to-back green days.

“There’s no gain with going longer into the summer, especially when seniors are so ready to go,” Oros said. “Underclassmen have worked really hard this year and it didn’t seem fair.”