At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, the grading system was set up in a pass/fail system. With the school board’s recent vote to remain in a fully remote setting, the grading policy remains as if students were in person. Although grades are being pursued as normal, some students have the mentality that if they are not physically in school, the work given is optional.

Many students have reported that since they are not in physical school, it has been harder to pay attention in class and turn in quality work.

“Recently I have felt since I am not in person and I don’t have someone watching me complete my work and telling me what to do, I get distracted and find myself asking if it really matters if I do it or if I don’t turn in my work,” sophomore Graysi Pellegrine said. 

Different students on the other hand, still know that the work is in fact mandatory. 

“Even though we are virtual for school, I never really convinced myself that the school work wasn’t mandatory. Even last year for the second semester ninth grade when we were online, I knew the work still counted towards my grade and it is no different this year,” sophomore Maura Kiser said. 

Some of the students have reported losing motivation and that their mental health has been declining, and that is why they have not been turning in their work or attending class.

“Sitting in front of my computer all day really has taken a toll on me. My motivation for school work has never been bad before, but since going online, I can hardly motivate myself to get out of bed in the morning. All the fun things that do happen in high school, we can’t experience really while we are online. We don’t get to see our friends everyday either which is a huge reason I used to come to school. I’ve found that my mentality of it is now if I turn it in by the due date, I am fine. The quality of my work has decreased rapidly along with my grades. It’s not even that I don’t find school important anymore. I still know school is incredibly important, and I should still be giving my best effort, but yet again I can hardly find any motivation to get up in the mornings anymore, so school work has just kind of become an optional thing in my eyes,” a student who wishes to stay anonymous said. 

Students while being online have stated that it has taken a toll on their stress and mental health.

“While doing online work I have found that it is much harder for me to grasp concepts. Sitting on a computer for hours hunched over and straining my eyes really makes it hard to learn. The amount of stress I’ve found myself in recently is so bad for me, let alone the fact that I’ve felt I haven’t learned a single concept this year. I don’t think it’s the teachers fault either; it is just so hard for me for some reason to catch on and follow along at home. I truly believe that you can’t learn if you’re stressed out and that’s all I’ve been for the past four months. My days run together and even on weekends, I’m working to get my weekend homework in before the due date. Everyday feels the same now no matter what we do, and it’s really difficult to get in your school work or even attend classes when you have no motivation for anything and nothing to look forward to,” anonymous said.

Other students have stated that working online is difficult for them and they felt like they were hardly learning anything. 

“Basically, switching to virtual the first semester was pretty decent. I used to attend all of my Zoom calls, and I never really complained about it. But as time started going on, I realized that I wasn’t learning anything from the Zoom calls, so I stopped attending them. I felt like there was no reason to attend them when I wasn’t learning anything. When I first stopped attending them and was still doing my work I would get credit for my work. I am now being told that it is mandatory to join the Zoom calls for us to get credit for anything. I did five assignments and got a zero on each and every single one because I never joined the Zoom calls, but I still got credit before without joining. Even though I did the work assigned on a weekend, I still got a zero because I didn’t join the Zoom calls during the week. I am definitely a hands on learner. Due to the circumstances, I understand that they [the teachers] are trying their very best with this whole virtual thing, but it is hard for me when I don’t feel like I am learning anything on the Zoom calls,” senior Emiley Rickabaugh said.