Due to the absolutely devastating coronavirus pandemic that has hit our country, everyone has had to make some changes to their lives. A big change that I know everyone reading this paper has felt, is the interesting development of online school. Because this is such a new thing, there are obviously gonna be some problems that need working through. We need to evolve our online school system, so we can make sure that students are getting the most out of school that they can in this online environment. We conducted a survey on the KTR website to see how satisfied students are with CHS’s online school system.

52.2 percent of everyone that responded said “eh, could be better”, 26.1 percent said “bad needs improvement”, and 17.4 percent answered that it was amazing. I think this paints a very clear picture of the things that are wrong with the system we are using right now. This school system works well for some students, but could be made way 

(results of a survey done on the CHS students)

better for the majority.

Let’s get into what students who answered the survey said were the main things that they had problems with.One student answered, “it is really hard to do schoolwork, as the class periods are too short so we never get any class work done in time. So, that adds to whatever homework we had, plus the class work we have that is done asynchronously”. People think that school should be less busy work and more conversations about the topics so we really understand it, because, especially in online school, these concepts can be pretty hard to fully understand anyways. Students really seem to be having trouble actually learning the material. Another major problem is the fact that for seniors, the workload is even worse because we have to keep track of all of our college stuff and the school work together. Many students talked about how It is hard to talk in zoom, especially when nobody participates in break out rooms.

Another really bad problem that has been affecting people is the fact that teachers assign us work on days when we do not have their class. Students do not check all of our classes everyday and like to plan on doing the work that is assigned to us during that day, so when we get extra assignments without any real notification of these assignments, it sort of throws us for the loop. This problem is similar to the fact that some classes assign work every other day that is due throughout the week when it is much better to just have things that are due at the end of the week. This is inconsistent and leads to students doing work during all of our free time.

As you can see, there are a lot of problems that need fixing. We need solutions as soon as possible. I have noticed in myself ,and through talking to some of my friends, a negative effect on my mental health because of online school. When we are not in school we are constantly working on homework, usually until midnight every night. For seniors we have to often decide between turning in an assignment late, or finishing our college applications. 

Some students wrote down what they would like from teachers on how to fix this problem. One student had the idea that they should “make teachers make videos on how to do certain things”. The majority of answers were along the lines of less work, more flexibility, and consistent due dates for every class. 

Here are two students personal experiences with online school and how they are dealing with things in school:

An anonymous senior boy at CHS said, “My experience with school this year has been pretty smooth, but it was hard to get used to at first. I like how there is a lot of time to complete work, but at the same time I think teachers need to do a better job of coordinating when work is due because I’ll have work due at so many different times like every day of the week.”

For another view, here is what an anonymous senior girl at CHS had to say: “Honestly I am not loving online school. It feels like teachers trying to load us up with lots of assignments that aren’t the most helpful / productive, and a lot of online school work just feels like busy work. It’s frustrating when certain teachers do not upload the modules at the beginning of the week and then all at once on Tuesday afternoon, and then unexpectedly we have so much work that we cannot plan around. The best part of school is the relationships created with teachers and peers while also learning and that’s just completely taken away with online so school just feels dreadful now, and that’s coming from like someone who usually really likes school.”

Now, from what I’ve seen through the words of the students and my own experience, I think online school does need to be slightly tweaked to make it less stressful for some students. Maybe it would help if everything was due at the end of the week, and not throughout the week. It would also help if maybe the teachers went through all of our assignments for the week at the beginning and reminded us throughout the week instead of relying on us to look at each class’s module on canvas. We students don’t really need too much just a little improvement and streamlining to make the learning environment better.