To go or not to go? That is the personal dilemma that some hybrid students face with in-person days. In past years the motivation to get out of bed and go to school came from avoiding absences and tardies but not this year.
With the decision between the hybrid or full-remote models following the reopening of schools after the Corona virus pandemic began the majority of OA’s students chose to cling onto however much normalcy they could obtain and go hybrid. With this, however, the reoccurring problem occurred: Students who are supposed to be physically present in class staying home and joining class virtually.
“If you signed up for hybrid, you should be in school, and if you’re not in school and you’ve been virtually present we have to figure out why that’s the case,” said Mr. Flanagan, one of OA’s assistant principals.
Because it is becoming more frequent that students are virtually present on their in-school days the question arose: How often is this happening and why are hybrid students deciding against in-person learning when given the opportunity?
“I stay home from school on in school days every once in a while” explains OA senior Carol Sullivan. “I do that if I’m feeling under the weather because I don’t want people to worry if I’m sick. I do try to go into school when I can but sometimes it’s just easier to stay home for a day”.
Sullivan is certainly by no means the only student that thinks that sometimes a remote day is exactly what is best for her. Other students appear to have similar mindsets. When asked how often she stays home during her cohort’s in-person days senior Celine Souaidan gives a blunt and thorough answer.
“A lot, I think I only go into school one time a week honestly,” she said. “Sometimes my mom thinks it’s better, sometimes I’m really just not feeling the whole being in school thing.”
There are also some reasons that just come with being a teenager taking advantage of their options. “Sometimes I wake up late, and sometimes it’s just too cold in a few of my classes,” she said.
While some explanations are better than others, a fellow member of the senior class, Josie Walton, brings to light some of her reasons that might not be considered by the administration.
“I don’t take every chance to go into school because some days I need to catch up on work and working from home allows me to do that. Also, school has changed so much and it’s so completely different it’s kind of depressing to be there.”
Aside from the students who take advantage of being able to join virtually, there are some who do whatever they can to avoid it. The reason being: quality of education. Student’s abilities to learn at an optimal level when remote has been in question from the beginning of reopening and our students have given their two cents.
“The reason I don’t miss out on in-person days is that online school is miserable,” said senior Kevin Trembley.
Another pro-in-school learning take from Carol Sullivan is, “This year is challenging enough and I think I learn better in person because there are fewer distractions and I feel like I understand the information if it is being taught to me in person.”
While favoring in-person learning is common there are also students like Walton who believe that they “learn best through both online and in school, if I was full remote I don’t think I would get anything done but that’s just me. I like doing both because it’s a good balance and being at home for the next 2 days allows me to get more work done.”
And while the administration and the faculty do their best to support students during this difficult situation, some things are simply circumstantial from student to student. What helps is knowing that there are plans in place to help students who might be struggling to comply with the hybrid schedule.
“We really take this by a case by case scenario, we run reports through X2. If there’s a student that’s suppose to be in person but that shows up virtually present, so they’re on a Google meet not in person, we follow up with a phone call home to the parent letting them know that their child’s not in school and they should be in person. And then try to figure out if there’s any other reason why that’s happening,” said Mr. Flanagan.
Mr. Flanagan was very open about the process of what follows a student deciding not to be physically present and discusses that at any point families are given the choice to switch from the hybrid model to fully remote.
“We want to work with kids and families. We’re gonna do everything we can on our end to try to help”
While the option to switch to full remote has always been available, many choose against it for a few reasons. Whether they do not know if they want to commit to not going back to in-person school or they worry about regretting the decision the common theme among reasons like those is a lack of information. To solve this Mr. Flanagan explains how students would go about switching back to the hybrid model.
“The superintendent just sent an email to the remote learners. They took a survey to see if people that are currently remote learners in the school district would like to potentially come back to school in the hybrid model after I think January 18th.”
Mr. Flanagan explains that currently the roadblock is “trying to figure out if there’s room for the remote learners to then be brought back in schools. By also maintaining the 6-foot distancing that’s in each and every class.”
The administration’s first priority is safety. While all learners are encouraged to try to switch back to hybrid the schools have to first make sure that doing that does not put the health of students’ in jeopardy. That means that there is a process of how remote students can come back.
“We look at people’s schedules and try to figure out if we are able to then adequately honor the remote learners that want to come back to hybrid,” Mr. Flanagan said.
“We’ll do everything that we can in terms of trying to fit them to come back in, but we have to make sure that all that distancing and all that safety and social distancing protocols that we have in place are still in effect when they do come back.”