A few days ago, the school board for the area I’m in started with school again. Unlike other years, the COVID-19 pandemic has made things more complicated in order to try and keep people safe. This week, I’ll be writing about the different measures that the board has put in place.
The biggest change that the schools have made this year is the introduction of the remote learning system. Unlike the previous year’s temporary emergency online learning, this system is supposed to be more organized. Before actually starting school, students were given the option if they’d like to participate in either full online learning or a mix of in-person and online. I ended up choosing the full online learning experience, so I’ll be able to comment more on that, but I also have a decent understanding of how the in-person side goes.
From the information that’s been sent out says, students that participate in in-person learning will be placed in groups of 15. Those 15 students will physically go to school every other day for around two hours. When they are not physically at school, they will also be participating in online courses. In my opinion, this just seems like online learning with a few extra steps that don’t really seem necessary. Students will only be at school for a little bit of time each week and will be doing online learning anyways, so I don’t really see the point. Supposedly, students won’t even get tested unless someone in their group of 15 starts showing symptoms.
As for the full online learning system, students will spend most of their time in Google Meet sessions with their teachers and the class that follow a normal school schedule. However, students that opted for a full online learning experience will be placed in classes where students are mixed from different schools and teachers. This means that you might not know as many people in your classes. So far, the board is still trying to get everybody’s courses figured out since some teachers had issues configuring their teaching platforms of choice.
Personally, the courses that I’m taking are Math, Technological Design, Careers & Civics, and Food & Nutrition. I’d say that I’m okay with all of the courses and the teachers seem alright. I actually had a bit of a problem getting in contact with my Food & Nutrition teacher, but eventually, we got things sorted out. None of my classes have actually started with any actual course material yet though, so it seems like it’ll take a little longer until we get started.
Overall, the school board’s approach to reopening schools has been going alright so far. I’m not too sure how well the in-person learning will go, and I think some of the choices they made are a bit questionable. We’ll see what happens though.