If the scene in New York City parks on Monday was any indication, students’ attendance in remote classes was more than a bit spotty.
Though the city’s public schools held those online classes, many youngsters cut out of them early, or skipped them entirely, in favor of icy thrills.
In Central Park, shrieking children took turns on sleds and tubes. In Astoria Park in Queens, about a dozen school-age children were sledding down a slope with their parents by late morning.
And in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, it felt like nothing less a quintessential snow day. There were games of football and fierce snowball fights. A steep hill in the park’s Long Meadow was so crowded with sleds that rides down the slope resembled bumper cars.
Tereza Flusser, 40, stood watch as her 8-year-old son, Henry, zoomed down the hill. “It’s way faster than I expected,” Henry exclaimed.
He had scored a green saucer sled over the weekend after a search through several stores that had run out.
Ms. Flusser said she had brought Henry to the park after morning remote classes, which she described as “chaotic.” Remote learning on snowy days, she argued, should be reserved for students in fifth grade and up.
“The smaller kids, they have to move more,” Ms. Flusser, a real estate broker who lives in Park Slope, said.
Henry, for his part, said he had been itching to get out and play. “If you ever meet the mayor, tell him, ‘Next time there’s a storm, full snow day,’” he said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took a pro-snow-day posture as a candidate last year, made the call on Sunday to hold classes. He said his hands were tied by a requirement that the city have 180 school days annually.
On Monday, in another area of Prospect Park, two 9-year-old Park Slope residents, Indigo Torchio and Abel Gura, discussed the snow-day decision after battling each other to a draw in an intense snowball fight. (“We invaded each other’s bases,” Abel said.)
Both agreed that school should have been canceled Monday.
“I feel like it’s silly that you have to have 180,” Indigo said of the school-day mandate.
Abel suggested that 175 would be enough.
Cradling a triangular block of snow, Abel said that he would throw “this cheese” at Mr. Mamdani if he saw him. The mayor on Sunday invited students to “pelt” him with snowballs over his decision.
But Indigo said he would not throw anything at the mayor. He respects the office, he said. And he had met Mr. Mamdani when he was a candidate.
Jason Manningham, 40, called the snow day debate a “tricky topic” as he tossed a football with his 8-year-old son, Jonah, who had attended a morning session of remote classes. “There are pros and cons,” said Mr. Manningham, who works in advertising and was taking a long lunch break from work.
But he estimated that most grade-school students in the neighborhood were cutting class.
“For us,” he said, “we certainly think it would have been nice to just be a full snow day.”
The children were joined in their snow joy by some committed adults. Alex Beal and JC Lovenskiold, two longtime friends and business partners, rushed to the city ahead of the storm with the goal of skiing across Manhattan.
Mr. Beal, a 29-year-old Colorado resident, and Mr. Lovenskiold, a 33-year-old from Norway, stayed in a tent in Central Park on Sunday night.
“We live for snow,” Mr. Lovenskiold said. “This is what we are after in our lives.”
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