The Jag

By Jadynne Brady

Editor-in-Chief

While many students believe that when the next day is called as an AMI day, it’s a free and relaxing snow day, admin and many teachers expect the opposite.  

From January 7-10, as well as on the 21st, South students had AMI (Alternate Methods of Instruction) days, instead of coming to school in person, due to weather conditions.  

The use of AMI days, rather than snow days, is because the school is required to have a certain amount of school days, and the AMI days allow schools to count toward those days. The state of Missouri grants schools a total of 5 AMI days. After that, they become snow days and the school has to make up those lost days.  

Science teacher Cody Fritts says that this is the first time that this has ever happened to him. 

“In my 18 years of teaching, we’ve never had four days in a row as AMI [days],” says Fritts. “COVID is the only thing I can think of that’s as close to that where we had, from March on, where it [the days off] was in a row. And most people did not enjoy that.” 

Principal Ryan Gettings says that there is a lot that goes into deciding what qualifies as an AMI day. 

“I think people try to make the absolute best decision, and it’s a lot that goes into it that. I don’t think people fully understand or realize. Keeping in mind how big the district is, how many buildings there are, [and] how much pavement there is,” says Gettings. 

However, Gettings is not making that decision at all. The administrators at Central Office are the ones who decide the AMI days. 

“So collectively, they’re talking and working together to get an idea of where we are,” Gettings says. “Whether it be either from a road condition standpoint or a weather standpoint or a cold standpoint, whatever it is. They’re all working through that, and they’ll come up with a decision that they think is right for us, and then that’s when you guys see it.” 

Junior Remy Mossberg says that he is not happy with the AMI days. 

“I think that some of them are kind of useless. I’m glad that we don’t have to make them up at the end of the year, but a lot of times we don’t take them seriously,” says Mossberg.  

For his classes, Mossberg felt like he lost some learning because of it. 

“A lot of my teachers just didn’t assign anything,” he says.  

Fritts finds that teachers must edit their lessons because of AMI days. 

“I think some of my students are still in that mindset of not liking the online learning, especially day after day after day,” says Fritts. “So as teachers, we’ve learned with AMI days to shorten the workload and to try to make it more to the point where students are able to access and be able to perform what we’d like them to be able to do.” 

However, being at the beginning of the semester, there are even more challenges with online learning. 

“The issue with this set of days was that we were starting a new semester, so like half of my classes were brand new. So, I’ve never even met my students yet,” he says.  

For Gettings, AMI days bring new responsibilities. For example, he must make sure that the network is able to work with that many computers connected, and that teachers have the correct expectations. 

“One [responsibility] is making sure that our staff is aware of what the expectation is for AMI days. And that is that students need to be provided opportunities to engage with and work on things that are needed for their class,” Gettings says.  

With the AMI, many events got cancelled, like Mossberg’s debate tournament.  

With learning, Mossberg feels much more productive at school rather than at home. 

“I feel like I’m more productive in the environment, and when I’m at home, more distracted,” says Mossberg.  

Fritts had come into the school to work on the ninth. He said that before winter break, he had prepared his lessons for the first week back and had left his school computer. However, with AMI days, he had to come back and rearrange them, as well as get his computer.  

On the 21st, Gettings himself had come into school as well. 

“For me personally, as a building principal, even on AMI days or snow days, I still show up to work,” says Gettings. “And you know that even though kids aren’t in the building, there’s other things that I have to do that my job requires me to do, like hiring.”  

As a teacher of AP classes, Fritts finds that those honors classes were hit the hardest. 

“They [the AP classes], out of all the classes, that would have the biggest effect,” Fritts says, “[I] had it in the past where [at the end of the year] we don’t have enough time, and it’s like, all right, I’m sorry, we’re going to have to flip over to reviewing.”  

 For the AP Tests, the exam days are set in May and are not changeable. The amount of AMI or snow days a school has does not change the exam day.  

However, Mossberg finds that his days weren’t all that affected.  

“They didn’t really change it that much. I didn’t get that much work from any classes,” he says.  

Mossberg is happy to deal with AMI days to get to snow days.  

“I’ll be glad to do it for the snow day. But we would have to make up at the end of the year,” Mossberg says. 

For future snow days, Fritts would be happy but there would be more lost time for classes. 

“What classes will have issues will be like your AP classes or your classes that have those exit exams at the end of the year. Because, again, that’s time loss that you won’t have in the classroom,” he says.