School Turns Virtual
Online learning affects families, teachers from all grade levels
Seniors Diane Evans, Wyatt Whitaker, and Brock Jones do their work in school while socially distanced and following government protocols regarding COVID. Whitaker and his classmates follow school rules to stay properly distanced while wearing masks and keeping their hands clean often.
The Board of Education decided to take a turn for digital online classes due to the coronavirus pandemic. Virtual learning has affected the students, parents and teachers in both positive and negative ways from staying socially distanced in person to seeing students smile at school.
“If I didn’t have to do Zoom meets or like Classroom meets, I would like it a lot more,” student Kara Brown 11 said. “But for me personally, I think that doing the classroom meets, it’s not very productive.”
Virtual learning is the new way of schooling for most 2020-2021 students for some time. Some students will go back to in person learning after a few weeks of online school, others will stay virtual.
Michael Gurecki, second grade teacher, has been instructing for 12 years at Stockbridge and is one of many educators to be new to virtual teaching. He and other teachers must keep desks socially distanced apart, keep their classrooms extra clean and continuously wipe down frequently touched objects when going back to in person learning.
“I am obviously more of a fan of face-to-face because, going into education as a teacher, I think all of us like teaching because we like to interact with kids,” Gurecki said.
Like many teachers, Gurecki likes “to give hugs to students in the mornings, play with the kids during recess and see their smiles when they accomplish something in the classroom.”
Parenting is also tough especially for those with children doing online learning.
Jill Ogden, school board member and mother to 7 children, had one child face to face, and two children virtually learning until the first month of school.
Working is tough for parents because they need to be home for their kids, as well as getting paid. Ogden has found this challenging, but did enjoy having her kids home.
“It hasn’t affected me too much other than I have been taking my two younger girls to work with me,” Ogden said. “Not all the time, but about half the time and it is harder to get stuff done with them at work. I do think it will be more beneficial for them to be at school, so I’m looking forward to them going back.”
Full of creativity and fun, Gabby Heath is a reporter for the Uncaged team. This is her first year joining. She is a part of NHS, Student Council, president...
