The pandemic has killed off snow days in New York City's public schools

New York City is getting ready to leave snow days back in the pre-pandemic past.

The New York City Department of Education announced Tuesday that it's scrapping snow days for the 2021-2022 school year, with plans to make use of remote learning when school is closed due to the weather, per The Hill.

"On 'snow days' or days when school buildings are closed due to an emergency, all students and families should plan on participating in remote learning," the NYC Department of Education said.

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The decision comes after New York City's public schools made use of remote learning throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and the city's Department of Education told CNN that the pandemic "created the ability to switch seamlessly to remote learning."

A November survey showed that during the pandemic, about 40 percent of school districts replaced snow days with remote learning days, The Atlantic previously reported, though it wasn't clear how many of these districts would continue the practice after students returned in person.

Though news of New York City's decision quickly drew criticism on Twitter, The New York Times' Eliza Shapiro wrote that "the city tries to avoid snow days because they are awful for the vast majority of parents who cannot work from home or cannot afford emergency child care." Still, others were quick to mourn the loss of snow days, with The Daily Beast's Harry Siegel vowing, "I assure you our kids will be out sledding rather than logging on to Zoom."