Bundled up in the puffiest winter clothes they own, many students will spend their weekday mornings wondering if they will even be able to make it to school due to snow and ice.

Snow days, or lack thereof, are not just a great excuse for students to sit around and enjoy an unexpected vacation, but are a legitimate safety issue.

Personally, I don’t understand how the school can get so caught up in staying on schedule that they forget to factor in student safety. I remember about a month ago, there was a heavy fog and I had to drive, literally, twenty miles per hour down some roads for not being able to see more than 5 feet ahead of my face. With cars magically appearing seemingly out of nowhere, the only thought going through my head was that getting to school on time was not worth the risk of a car accident and possible personal injury. The same is true of days when the ground is layered in ice and newly fallen snow.

I love the snow. It is a love that has been with me since childhood. My favorite time of year is when I walk out of my house and feel like I’m in a snow globe. However, more and more often I find myself in a love-hate relationship with snow, rather than the blind adoration I felt in my younger years. This probably stems from the fact that now, instead of listening detachedly to my mother complaining about how hard it is to drive in; I am now experiencing this myself.

While we have not yet had enough snow fall to cause serious problems, the fact that we live in an area that typically gets thirty seven inches of precipitation per year hints that we certainly will in the very near future.