For the second time since the end of the COVID -19 pandemic, Loy Norrix students are climbing back into bed, logging back into Google Meets and returning to virtual school.
This is the second year that students have returned to virtual school during the SAT and standardized testing period. This switch to virtual learning is done to prevent students from losing instructional time while mandated state tests are happening and to allow testers to have a quiet, distraction-free testing atmosphere.
This change is necessary to prevent loss of class time and ensure that enough students are in class for the state to count these days as instructional time. Michigan requires public school students to attend at least 180 days of school. If any of the testing days don’t have enough KPS students in attendance, making up time in June could be required. Despite this necessity of having students attending 180 days of school, many students have expressed concerns regarding online learning.
“I think it will be hard being at home, especially having to wake up and do the Google Meets super-early, especially being in my bed, I’m probably going to fall asleep,” said sophomore Ella Johnson.
Other students echoed this concern, adding that attendance might falter.
“It kinda mixes up my habits. I’m not good at virtual schooling, so meeting in person would be more beneficial, but I think it’s kind of cool to get to stay home for a little bit,” said senior Kaylee Zirkelbach. “I don’t think anyone is really going to go to class though.”
This new learning environment can also make it harder for teachers to support their students in learning.
“For students who normally get A’s and B’s, we can cover everything and it’s super fast, but for anyone who has even the slightest question, they can feel frustrated and maybe start falling behind,” said math teacher Micheal McCauley. “Most students need that support of someone saying ‘yeah you can do it’ and so when they’re at home with their computer, they just get bored and frustrated sometimes.”
Planning virtual school can also be difficult considering 370 juniors and over 20 seniors will be testing this week and not attending their classes. This could lead to some students missing out on content.
“I think it’s pretty stupid just because all of the grade levels are going to be missing out on something other than seniors, so I feel like doing school online like that is just a little bad,” said senior Arianna Mccord.
McCauley, however, says that many teachers plan for testing in their curriculum, making sure testing students don’t miss out on new content while still providing beneficial learning to students who are in class.
“Over the summer we map out the curriculum, so test weeks are what I call typing questions,” said McCauley. “You don’t have to do math, you just have to practice making graphs. In that way, they’re not missing any new content while they’re testing.”
