[kmcclary]

Absolutely! I'm working with multiple teams in MI, and snow days affect all of them.

But it's a mixed bag. Some of the teams love snow days, while others hate them with a passion.

The teams that love snow days are those that can still get into their school or build work place whenever the school is closed. This gives them a LOT of extra work hours during the build, so they often wish for snow days!

But there are also teams who are horribly penalized whenever snow days occur. For example: Team 1015 (Pi Hi Samurai, Pioneer HS in Ann Arbor MI) is greatly crippled whenever the school is closed for an extended stretch. Unlike many schools who may be "closed" yet the school building is unlocked, there's a PHS school policy that bans all groups from meeting at the school whenever it is closed for snow days. As a result, the multiple subzero windchill "ice days" this build season has hurt them tremendously. It prevented them from getting access to their school shop build site for a number of days in a row, damaging their build.

Personally, in the future I'd like to see a rule that gives teams the ability to appeal their ship date with FIRST whenever "natural disasters" delay their build season. I'd like to see an "add one day per snow day to the ship date" policy instituted (limit 5 additional?), given a written statement from the school that "they were not allowed to meet at their build location for XX days, due to factors beyond the team's control" (and outline them).

If the build was totally "equal opportunity", this wouldn't be needed. But that's not true. An extension policy for "extenuating circumstances" only seems fair. Southern teams don't encounter snow days like northern ones do. Mid-continental teams never encounter down time from coastal hurricanes or floods. Plains states don't see CA mudslides. ANY team's town may encounter a major power grid outage, or an epidemic "shutting down the town" (etc, etc...).

Just my $0.02...

- Keith McClary
Chief Engineer, Team 1502 "Technical Difficulties"