The Class of 2023 at Jimmy Carter Early College has been affected by online classes. Students have expressed concerns over their academic progress and the impact on their GPAs.
During the pandemic, students experienced disruptions at home that may have contributed to poor academic performance. Carter students stated that they would not just focus on schoolwork because their home environment has many distractions and opportunities to pull away from school work.
“For example, my grades went down for the cause that I couldn’t focus at home,” Alysha Garza said.
The in-person school affects students’ performance that is linked to the tangible consequences that were not effective or present during virtual classes. Junior students expressed that they felt like administrators would not be able to enforce consequences from home.
“I feel like I did a little bit worse because I felt like I didn’t get consequences if I didn’t show up to class, so I wouldn’t go as much,” Alondra Chavarria said.
Some students have expressed concerns over how their classes were taught and feel that the instruction was lacking or not appropriate for their own learning needs.
“Due to the condition we are in, my grades did go down, not badly, but they did go down to what I didn’t expect,” Rubie Lopez said.
Carter students’ experiences during the pandemic and distance learning differed, but many expressed high levels of concern over their current academic status.
“Yes, because I didn’t have the proper teaching due to online classes,” Garza said.
The worldwide pandemic led school systems, parents, and students to adapt to something new and unexpected. However, procrastinating is not new to students, and many agree that this was an easy escape during online classes. Today, students are left trying to figure out who was to blame for these lapses in studying and pushing back assignments.
“I blame myself because teachers tried to give me as many resources as they could, and I couldn’t take advantage of it,” Chavarria said.
“ I blame virtual classes because I personally need to get taught face-to-face to understand the criteria,” Garza said.
“It’s a 50/50 because I feel like in my part I should have done more, and in their part, I think they were already doing the most they could,” Lopez said.
Distance learning proved to be a challenge for Carter students, and after almost two years of learning away from campus, students are now back in the building participating in face-to-face lessons.
