The COVID-19 virus has forced schools to be shut down to fully-online or hybrid models. The school board has been thinking of returning secondary students to full in-person learning as of March 10th, 2021. 

The mental health of students is important. Being online has affected students in numerous bad ways because of the lack of social interaction, being distracted at home, not focusing, and not getting the help they need.

Not being able to see your friends makes it difficult to be online due to a lack of social interaction. People need to socialize to stay healthy, and they may need to talk to certain individuals because they are the only ones they can trust and talk to. All that time alone can cause depression and anxiety issues. Us teenagers need people to survive being stuck inside and to conquer the feeling of loneliness.

Doherty freshman Alexis Engels says, “It would help a lot  to be in person because instead of stressing about getting help, you can just raise your hand in person  to get help.”  It is easier in person to get help when you raise your hand in person because when you’re online, if your camera is off, the teacher may not see you raise your hand, or you won’t have the problem of unmuting and talking over each other.

Grades have gone down due to online school, mainly because people have a hard time focusing due to things like ADHD or ADD. So, their attention span is short when looking at a screen, and at home, there may be a lot of distractions versus at school. People also do not learn well online because they feel like they don’t get the help they need.

Doherty freshman Dominic Mayes says, “I am against online learning because online my  grades dropped.”  It is a lot easier to work in person because you can get better resources and the help you need. Teachers can usually tell if a student is not getting something due to their facial expressions that is when we’re in-person, but  – when we’re online and our cameras are off, they won’t be able to tell if we’re understanding the material.

People just ditch class online because they think there will not be consequences because unfortunately some parents, not all but some, do not care if their kid is in school. Students  should be responsible for their own work  so it  should fall back on the students because they should be responsible for their school work. In-person, a student can’t just leave class when they please because, obviously, the teacher would notice.

there has been a lot of lack of participation. In an online environment, there are a lot of kids that are not as engaged as they would be in person. Some of this may be due to just being over-stressed, they’re not getting the help and support they need. Also due to family issues, kids may have  problems with money because their parents are unemployed. The day school shut down it changed kids’ lives. Unfortunately, with some kids being at home, the school was their only source of food because not every family is made of money.

Doherty freshman Audrey Kadlec says, “Online school is hard to participate in. You could not talk to your classmates for help or to reason with. You could only listen to your teacher’s lecture and talk to them. In-person, you can engage in the conversation and talk with everyone one-on-one.” This proves my point due to not having social interaction, and not being engaged because they cannot really interact with anyone else online besides their teacher. Unless they are forced into a breakout room which may not always be with the people you know.

Some students may not have a safe quiet space to learn. This is because some kids may not have a stable life at home. Their household may be very loud or unfortunately  their parents fighting all the time, and that can add a lot of stress. They may not be able to concentrate and stay focused in those environments.

Some students have a lack of self-esteem. this kind of ties into the camera situation. I have noticed about half of my classes do not turn them on.Most of the class does not turn on their camera unless they are required to, and even then, some of them just point the camera at the ceiling. Some students have always been bullied about their looks, so it causes them not to turn on their cameras so they do not get cyberbullied. Or they just do not feel good about themselves in general, which is never good. Being online, you cannot necessarily get the resources you need to help your self-esteem go up, so you do not have to care what people think.

 This year there have been a lot of technical issues or difficulties. Some students may not have the best internet. This may cause them to be late, or even worse, not be able to even get into a class. They also may have connection issues. For example, lagging or cutting out a lot. 

Doherty freshman, Madison Merrifield, says, “Once we’re back in person I think [that] less people will worry about connecting to meetings on time and students will be able to more easily interact with each other.” I agree with Madison. Logging into meetings and being on time for meetings is incredibly stressful.

 People have struggled this year with friendships or relationships. In an online environment, it is a lot harder to make friends or have a relationship dating-wise. Doherty freshman, Marcus Dinan, says, “When it comes to relationships, finding friends, or someone to care for, it’s easier to do that in person so you get to know their true personality.” I agree with this because online you may not get to see the person’s face or how they act around different people.

Due to the factors of  mental health,  grades, social interaction,  attendance, self esteem, tech issues etc.  This is why students should go back in person because they wont have as many issues being in the building in person versus when they’re at home. Covid-19 has ruined the spirit of schools. Now we have the chance to kind of start going back to normal. For your mental health and education, I would go back in person march 10th full time. So  you can get the actual help every student deserves.