The plan to go back to school next year is close to being finalized but nothing is official yet and (hopefully) there will not be anymore online school.
Howard County is planning to safely return to in-person learning next year with hopes of the metrics decreasing due to safe percentages and wide-spread vaccinations. As of December 15, the plan is to have the same schedule as the 2019-2020 school year. There will be 7 classes for the whole year instead of 4 classes each semester.
Many students are looking forward to going back to school in person because they feel that 4 classes aren’t enough.
“I feel that if we transition back to the old schedule with seven classes, it would mean we were truly back to normal. These four classes don’t give students the high school experience that it used to,” freshman Connor Crossan said.
Many students also want to return to school for the sports and the experience of playing on a team with friends.
“I would be looking forward to going back to school, because that would mean sports start back up for sure, and I would be able to see and talk to friends I do not see and talk to outside of school,” freshman Roland Brooks said.
Crossan was also excited for sports and seeing friends. “I was also looking forward to the sports and all the other extra curricular activities,” said Crossan.
Though it is very exciting that students may have the opportunity to return to in-person learning, problems may arise. There is a risk that many students will forget a lot of the material they learned in the first semester. With the four-by-four model, students’ first semester classes end this month, and they will then go months without learning about those subjects. Students may not be able to retain information through a nine-month layoff.
“My concern about not having a class in the spring is that I will probably forget a lot from this time now, to what is about a year later. I wish the schedule was set up a little bit better so that that wouldn’t happen,” Brooks said.
Surprisingly, students already have to start choosing their classes for the 2020-2021 school year throughout the next couple weeks. Many of the students were not aware. Crossan was the only one who was aware and knew that he needed to start choosing his class.
“I was aware that we needed to choose our 2021 classes in the next couple of weeks because I have two older siblings. Because we only have a couple of weeks left in the semester with our first four classes, we need to know what classes in that subject to take,” Crossan said.
Students are very excited to go back to school for many reasons. For now, students hold on to hope that the pandemic will get better so that the plans for the future won’t get changed. Of course, the safety of students and staff is the first priority.