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On Nov. 10, 2020, the NS school district issued a new Friday schedule for NS high school, making Fridays for remote learners and for in-person learners to work online.
That schedule has meant a lot of changes, including challenges and benefits, for both teachers and students.
“I like the Friday schedule just because it gives me a chance to cool down,” sophomore Conner Power said. “If I do have assignments, it’s very minimal, so it kind of just helps me personally. I feel like people like it a lot more than what the schedule used to be.”
And while in person students get the opportunity to stay home after being in school four days of the week, remote and quarantined students get a chance to come in and receive help from their teachers.
“I think it’s helpful to some degree, because at least for me, it’s like the only day that I can fully communicate with the teachers,” freshman Aidan Inglish said.
But students aren’t the only ones who have had to make adjustments. Teachers have had to sacrifice their instruction time, which can mean cutting from their curriculum. Despite that sacrifice, many teachers think it’s worth it.
“Right now with the pandemic, I think this schedule is a good thing for the most part,” math teacher John Sadler said, “but I can see it being wasted easily and I wouldn’t hope that we continue with it. I don’t think that it’s an advantage for the school year because we miss some opportunities to have class with everyone. But until we get all the students in the classroom again, I think it is important.”
And because of this Friday schedule, time can be easily wasted.
“I think it’s way difficult. Even though Friday is a remote day it’s still a work day for all kids,” Principal Christy Straatman said, “The material that teachers need to get through in a school year, it made it more difficult because they’re almost chucking more of that Monday through Thursday especially for those that come in person. They feel like they don’t have as much time to get through their curriculum.”
While the Friday schedule has provided some help for remote learners, some still find it to be a struggle.
“I get to communicate more,” Inglish said. “During the week that doesn’t happen, but the bad thing is that some teachers just don’t try to communicate at all anyways, so it’s kind of just like a day wasted almost.”
While many remote students find Fridays helpful to meet with teachers and get instruction, some in-person learners love it for other reasons.
“I feel like the new Friday schedule is really great. I feel like when we have the Friday schedule we don’t get as much homework because we aren’t at school on Friday,” junior Evan Garff said. “It seems like most of the teachers just do Zoom where you can get on and ask questions and for students that’s a positive because they can get on if they need and if they don’t, they don’t have to which is nice.”
But while receiving not as much homework is nice, is it good for the students to be home?
“I think that a lot of students don’t take advantage of [the Friday schedule] and I think that they fall behind in class work and school work and try and catch back up,” Sadler said, “and I think it’s more difficult for them to catch back up then if they had just done their work in the first place.”
