The city's 1.1 million public school children will get the day off Tuesday. While the mayor says the decision to cancel school is always complicated, this time, the forecast made it easier. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed this report.
Even before school was out Monday, students across the city learned that they'd get to stay home on Tuesday.
"Our principal said it over the loudspeaker," said student Kaitlyn Davis.
"The moment I heard about the snow day, I was like 'yay!'" said Clara Hawkes.
"I didn't even hear the announcement. It's just all of my classmates were cheering and screaming really loud," said Zoe Eng.
As usual, kids had big plans.
"I'm going to stay up late tonight," said Dave Procopio.
"Yeah, I'm going to stay up late and then we're just going to have some fun," said Kian Mahdsoltanr
"We can make some snowmans," said first-grader student Caroline Leung.
"Because we can slide and we can make some snowmans," said Caroline's twin, Charlotte.
For a long time, city kids hardly ever got to experience a snow day. From 1978 to 2009, public schools were closed just seven times for winter weather.
That seems to be changing, though. Tuesday will be the fifth time in five years that student and teachers get to stay home.
"The school decision is never a light decision because there are state standards, state laws that dictate how many days of school we have to have, obviously we don't want to disrupt children's education if we can avoid it," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
This snowstorm is happening right as many high school students were scheduled to take regents exams required for graduation. The city and state agreed to postpone the tests until Thursday.
"I am happy because I get to study a little more," said eleventh grade student Victor Milligan.
The city's decision to have—or to not have—a snow day is inevitably controversial. While most parents we spoke with agree with the mayor's decision to cancel school on Tuesday, some think he should have also called off school on Monday.
"I have heard of kids stuck in traffic for five hours because of the snow," said parent Luciana Nikpour.
The mayor learned the downside of keeping schools open last year, when his Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña was skewered for not taking a February storm seriously.
Already, some students and parents are wondering about Wednesday. While de Blasio says no decision has been made, there's been just one example of consecutive snow days since the late 70s: January 8 and 9, 1996.
There are many kids who hope to match that record this week.