Last year COVID forced students and staff to make various changes, the major one being that school was completely online. Students took three classes per semester instead of six, and the SBA test was not being given to sophomores like it usually would have been.

According to the Washington State Department of Health, schools must meet the following new requirements: “Schools must plan to provide full time in-person education for all interested students with the following required mitigation measures: universal face coverings/masks, physical distancing”.

Some students found online learning to be a bit more challenging, while others found it beneficial.

“I just can’t do online learning anymore. It was super hard; I was like the person that needed to be like in person, like hands-on learning to like to understand anything,” senior Annyka Zamora said.

Two-thirds of the interviewees either liked in-person better, or decided to come back in-person.

“Online or in-person? I like in-person, right now because I get to like interact with people I haven’t seen in like around a year,” senior Noah Fontenot said.

Another adjustment that students had to make this year was going from three classes at once back to six.

“It honestly feels better to be in more classes because my attention doesn’t have to be focused on one thing for so long,” sophomore Alyssa Silk said.

For some students, this change felt overwhelming, since they now have the workload of six classes instead of three. However, for other students like Silk, this is a welcome change since shorter classes makes each class less draining.

Some students found it difficult to adjust to remote learning last year because they didn’t have access to the same materials that they had in previous school years.

“We couldn’t do labs or anything either, and so it was kinda difficult in that way,” senior Emma Morris said.

With in-person classes, students have access to supplies they used to have access to before remote learning. Of course, some adjustments still have to be made, like more sanitizing of the equipment and social distancing measures; however, students now have the opportunity to once again use the materials that they didn’t have access to last year.

Even though most students enjoy in-person learning more, there are still some aspects of online learning that a lot of students did like.

“I liked it because I’m a pretty independent learner, and so I was able to just get my stuff done and go at my own pace,” Morris said.

Most of the students liked the learning pathways teachers provided for their students during the remote learning, as they provided students with information on what they would be learning on a certain day, and when things were due.

“Every teacher had a Google Classroom, every teacher had their learning pathways, so every teacher had videos that they made. We’ve got a number of students that are potentially quarantined and not here, so we do have some of the stuff that we did last year we can incorporate into this year to help those students,” said history teacher Jason Billingsley.

In this way, the online format of school last year is helping students in quarantine since the experience that teachers gained from teaching online last year has allowed them to still be able to teach students who are absent for extended periods of time due to COVID. This also helps students when they miss school in general, as it allows them to see what is happening in class via learning pathways, and in a lot of cases, it allows them to still be able to complete assignments.

It’s been around two months since the first day back in-person. Students are still getting used to the schedule and routine of their new school day, and as we progress further into the school year, students will re-establish similar routines to what they had before COVID.