It’s safe to say that the beginning of the school year hasn’t exactly run smoothly. Yet in the face of completely new challenges both students and teachers are working hard to make these difficult circumstances work. At the beginning of the year we were presented with a schedule that was less than satisfactory, to say the least. There were a good amount of flaws leaving students without much break time in between long class periods of staring into a screen, but on September 27 we got a new schedule. Is it everything we could have wanted? Well, no.
“I would say that the new schedule is an improvement from the last schedule, definitely a step in the right direction” health teacher Brian Mehl said. “I think the new schedule takes a little bit of pressure off the day to day operations”
This new schedule is definitely an improvement, that much can be said for certain. One big problem many people had was with the short breaks and lunch of the old schedule. It wasn’t much different than the length of normal school, but online school seems to leave everyone wanting a longer break from it. Which is why they shortened both breaks by five minutes.
Well, that isn’t necessarily fair because yes, while they did shorten the two breaks by five minutes, they also did the same to every class. So while there is less time in between the first-third and fifth-seventh period, there is now a one hour period of lunch to split the two halves of the day. It’s really refreshing not having to finish lunch during fifth period.
Now, while an improvement, it also isn’t the best case scenario. The hardest part about all of this is finding out what the best case scenario actually is. Every student has individual needs and it is impossible to find a perfect solution for everyone. This new schedule has introduced asynchronous learning time, which while a helpful time for productive students and procrastinators alike, gives students a bit of time away from the screen, which it generally has failed to do.
“Well it really depends on the teacher” Marie Guthrie, a highschool junior, said when we asked her if asynchronous work time helped her, “I’d say I benefit from it because it’s better than staring at a screen”.
The schedule isn’t perfect, it helps some while it may hurt others, but the fact that effort was put into trying to make the experience better for everyone is helpful nonetheless. This very well may not be the last big change, as there seems to be a rather consistent effort to enhance our online schooling experience. Which is why it is important now to reach out to teachers or the principal with any concerns because it may very well be what goes into future decisions. Times are tough, but it does seem the school cares and if that continues in their future schedule revisions, then the future looks bright.
