As we know, Covid has effected all of our education in many different ways. Last school year students started the school year online and then got the option to go in-person. It was a challenging year. But this year is already starting to hit hard. We have been in school for about a month now and students left and right are either getting tested for eight days or getting sent home ten to twenty days.

Do we truly know how different online learning this year is compared to last year? “We’ve been given recommendations to spend the majority of time focusing on the students that are in the classroom. So the online portion now is, in my opinion, significantly less impactful for students because last year, the emphasis was to focus on the students that were online. So for myself personally, I asked almost zero questions this year,” said Math Teacher Branden Patterson

In some cases the students who are logging onto class meetings and putting forth the effort don’t get it back. It becomes a struggle when only one person is putting in the effort to try and keep up. A person on quarantine, whether they are sick or someone in their household has covid, can only do so much. All they can do is try their very best to keep up on all of their assignments and hope their teachers are willing to put in the effort as well.

A student who was on quarantine, but we are not naming to due privacy, noticed the difference as well.

“Only two teachers would check in on me and make sure I was doing my work and they would ask me how I was doing. The others I never heard a word from unless I had a question.”

Yes, there are students in class who need help, but what about the one or two people on the other side of the screen? “It’s very difficult to teach both. In  other words you can teach the kids in class which is what I think you should do when there’s a majority of them here and then you hope the one kid that is online is able to participate,” said ROTC teacher Major Phillips. But are teachers really trying to put forth the effort to include the student or students online?

It is very sad too see things go back to semi- normal and then it all just go backwards. Major Phillips has said “It’s scary if it does go back to remote learning because the kids missed out on so much. Our program is hands-on. JROTC is a lot of hands-on leadership. Remote just can not replace normal school.” Even having a semi- normal school year, there are still students who are suffering.

According to the Teachers Union, teachers do not HAVE to start meetings online. This is very disappointing because the people who are at home will just watch their grades drop and they can’t do anything about it. Hopefully majority of teachers will care enough to help you get through it. Will we ever be back to a school year with no masks, no testing, no more quarantine?

The district sent out a list of rules for the online classes this year. One of the rules says, “Simultaneous instruction means that teachers will turn on TEAMS in the classroom when a student is isolated or required quarantine. The teacher will teach the class as normal, focused on the students in the classroom.”

Essentially, our district is okay with leaving students behind for ten to twenty days. It is pretty much up to the teacher themselves to decide if they are going to help keep the student or students on top of their assignments. Students can only do so much from home.