At Springfield Honors Academy, online school has caused a variety of new problems: lack of motivation, stress, inability to focus are just some. Regular schooling seems to be the preferred way of learning for the majority of students for various reasons. 

About 63 percent of the entire student body want to go back to the way things were, according to a poll conducted in early November. Another 22 percent reported being undecided about this topic, meaning only 15 percent prefer virtual learning.  

“I prefer regular school because the teachers can pay more attention to my needs,” says sophomore Aaliyah White. And she’s not alone.

The experience of the sophomore class is instructive, as its polling numbers are nearly identical to the average of the school as a whole. About 62% of the class prefers to be attending school in person. About a quarter of 10th graders are finding it much harder to balance schoolwork with sports/extracurricular activities and almost 44 percent of them are also feeling stressed about schoolwork much more often than when they were attending school in person. These numbers were taken from a school-wide poll conducted in November. 

“Because we are being bombarded with so much work and not enough time,” said Christine Nteturuye  in describing why she is feeling more stressed. Martavionna Collins added that “because too many teachers give out too many assignments at once,” she finds it hard to keep up sometimes.

Remote learning simply isn’t the solution for school indefinitely and the data from the poll that was taken by 200 SHA students on November 5-6 shows just that. When online school is compared with when we were attending school in person it’s not only more stressful because of the workload, but it has also made it harder for some to balance schoolwork with sports/extracurricular activities.

Although in the minority, there are some students who aren’t so adamant on going back. Of that same poll, 33.50% of students said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with remote learning. 

Students such as sophomore Sierra White think the benefits of remote school outweigh the negatives.   “I’ve grown accustomed to this way,” she said.  “Plus, I’m no longer late.”