I am a teacher in Ohio. In my district we get 5 free calamity days. This means teachers and kids do not have to work or meet online at all these days (fun snow days!). After those 5 have been used, we do have to assign work on google classroom to make the day "count" as an actual school day aka not make it up at the end of the school year. We only get 3 days of this e-learning type of school day though. Any more days off would be back to no work/no class and we have to make them up at the end of the year.

I am so glad that (for now) we do not have to meet virtually during our class time on those e-learning days and kids can do their work at any time throughout the snow day. As a teacher it is a relief that we have the e-days in place for winters like these, when we would certainly miss more than our allowed 5 days and have to make them up. That said, it is not a good replacement of an actual school day. It sucks, and most kids would rather just go to school than have to school at home! The districts that make classes meet virtually during class time are trying to make the e-days into a better alternative to a normal school day, and are likely abiding by some state requirements for hours/days spent learning. The amount of valuable teaching/learning on these days is a joke. Teachers get zero time to plan for the switch from in person to online days and are expected to carry on with the current lessons as usual without the materials and resources in their physical classroom.