By Aniela Carey
As the number of Covid-19 cases rise steadily each day, schools have been required to adapt to this unusual situation. With over 12,000 deaths in the state of Massachusetts due to Covid-19, schools have made the health and safety of their students their number one priority. There have been over 1,000 cases in Franklin County alone, so many local schools have decided to switch, at least temporarily, to fully remote learning as opposed to the “hybrid learning model”. Frontier Regional has just returned back to hybrid learning, after switching to a fully remote learning method for a short time.
Now that Frontier students have experienced learning remotely, learning in a hybrid format, and learning normally, they have begun thinking about the pros and cons of each. One Frontier student states that they, “miss being able to work with other students…[remote learning doesn’t] have the same effect as working face to face with a friend”. This seems to be a shared opinion as another Frontier student claims that they, “miss the communal learning of in person and being with friends”. That said, both students have found some positives in remote learning such as more time to sleep since they don’t have a bus to catch, and being in a “more comfortable workspace that can be modified for focus or other preferences”.
At this point, many students who started out in the hybrid learning format have now switched to fully remote learning. One student who ended up doing this claims that it’s, “a little more settling not to worry about Covid protocols”. Between the necessary disruption of mask breaks and the constant threat of Covid, this student finds that they are able to better focus on the material at hand when at home. Other students have decided to treat hybrid learning as a calculated and much needed risk. Getting out of the house and seeing other students has been a worthwhile experience for some, even despite the lack of normalcy. One of the students interviewed for this piece made sure to give the following reminder: “Just do your part. Wear a mask, keep your distance, for your sake and for others. Stay safe so this can end sooner.”