As temperatures drop below ten degrees Fahrenheit, once fluffy snowflakes turned into a thick icy blanket for parents to shovel, children to slip on, and commuters to maneuver. Following the snow storm that occurred this January, Townsend Harris High School students have been left buckling their snowboots and zipping their jackets to prepare for days of winter chill and frostbite. 

Many students and teachers found that the snow and ice greatly impacted their ability to commute to school both safely and on time. Dirty snow is piled mile-high on sidewalks, preventing movement. Ice forms on roads, turning the pavement slick and making traveling on wheels extremely dangerous. 

Regardless of this, students and faculty are still expected to arrive at Townsend Harris by 8 AM on the dot. 

Freshman Julie Chen, along with most students at THHS, commutes to school using public transportation. “The snow affected my commute heavily as there’s much more … delays and crowds [for the bus],” she said. 

Sophomore Seph Penaflor had a similar experience. He said, “The first day after the snowstorm, our car got stuck in the snow when we were coming out of the driveway…coming home from school was especially worse, as it felt like buses took significantly longer to arrive, which left me waiting in the freezing cold.”

Sophomore Christine Chen said that the resulting snow from the weather made her late to school every day for the last week. She said, “even when my dad drove me to school, I was 20 minutes late…[The traffic] was really bad.”

Junior Emilia Idec said that the bad weather makes her feel unmotivated to go to school. “It’s tiring to go out when you know that there’s snow on the ground, that there’s …snow everywhere, and it’s freezing cold,” she said. “I’m just going to say that I’m glad there was no other snowstorm…[last] Sunday,”

The snow storm not only impacted students’ commutes to school, but teachers’ as well.

Computer/Network Coordinator and Physics teacher John Tsai said, “I still drive [to school], but it takes longer, especially on Kissena Boulevard. Cars are forced to park halfway into the lanes…[and the lanes are] narrow, so what should be two lanes is now one.”

To ensure students and other faculty members can have a smoother arrival, the custodial staff has worked tirelessly to clear mounds of snow off of sidewalks and roads neighboring Townsend Harris. 

The Townsend Harris High School Instagram page made a post acknowledging their hard work, saying, “It was no easy task…[the custodians] stayed in the building overnight and had to battle both the snow falling and the snow the plows kept pushing up on the curb.”

Custodian Hector Benitez said the snowstorm has required him and the rest of the custodial staff to work together for much longer in the harsh winter conditions. 

“It wasn’t easy this time around,” he said. “This weather stayed cold for a long time, but we were able to manage. We have a good crew.…and we were able to do the best we could to make it easy for [students] to come in and out of school.”

However, despite the hours of hard work the custodial staff put into clearing the snow, it is still difficult for individuals to arrive at school on time as a result of the overall state of roads leading into the THHS area, an external factor students simply cannot control. To combat this, students have voiced suggestions:

“Schools should be more lenient on late students during rough weather conditions like this snowfall, at least [by] around 10 minutes, or even have them show proof of their delayed commute to show that they were late due to uncontrollable factors,” said Seph.

Julie said “It would also be nice if school started 10-15 minutes later.”

For now, until the snow melts, Harrisites are just going to have to brace themselves against the extreme weather, and the side effects that come with it. This weekend weather forecasts predict low temperatures to drop to single digits, with additional snowfall possible on Saturday morning.