Four Rochester high schoolers reflect on their experiences in distance learning
It was March 18, 2020 when Rochester Public Schools announced it would close for two weeks in response to Covid-19. At that point, Phoebe Meyer was just starting her final semester at Kellogg Middle School — and getting prepared for her next big move, to Century High School in the fall.
“That’s the part where everybody’s like, ‘oh my god! We’re going to be high schoolers!,’” said Meyer. “We’re on top of the school, and then all of a sudden, there’s no school.”
Quickly, that two-week closure turned into distance learning for the rest of the year. Then, after summer break, it was more distance learning to start the current school year. Elementary schoolers have since returned to class, but the older students haven’t been as lucky: Thursday marked 11 months since a full-capacity high school class was taught on an RPS campus.
That means five months into their high school career, Meyer and thousands of other freshmen have become Panthers — or Spartans, or Rockets — without ever setting foot on campus. Meyer and her friends always expected high school to be different — but not like this.
“We’re coming in from eighth grade, and it’s more homework than we’re used to and we’re online,” said Meyer. “So it’s been kind of rough. I’m doing okay, but some of my friends are not. They’re struggling to get work done. It’s been a weird transition.”
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Now, it appears that the end to distance learning is in sight: RPS currently plans to send all secondary students back to the classroom on April 5, skipping over hybrid learning entirely and going straight back to full in-person instruction.
That decision was made in early February, but an announcement this week from Gov. Tim Walz may throw a wrench in those plans. With one in four Minnesota educators already having at least one vaccine dose, Walz wants to speed up the return of secondary students.
“Our expectation is that schools will offer some in-person learning, and my goal is to see, the best we can, five days a week, in-person learning in all schools by March 8,” said Walz.
While the governor’s guidance only applies to districts that had not released a learning plan as of Wednesday — which RPS has — the district told parents Thursday it would “revisit the conversation” at their next scheduled meeting, set for March 2.
But whenever the doors open again, it will end a roughly year-long period of distance learning that’s tested thousands of Rochester’s young people in ways they never thought they would be.
The students describe a school experience with less supervision from teachers, and a greater emphasis on personal discipline and time management. They say things have started to run smoother since the beginning in April, when everybody was still figuring out the online software, but sustained isolation has taken a toll on students’ academic and social confidence.
Yasmin Ali, a junior at Mayo High School, says the biggest difference is in the level of class participation in the virtual setting. It’s much easier to mentally check out of a class when the teacher isn't actually there.
“It’s much harder to collaborate virtually, whether it’s on a group project or just trying to help people on assignments,” said Ali. “Things that would seamlessly fall together in-person, have been left out virtually. I guess that’s been mediated with breakout rooms, but it’s really not the same to come together and have an idea spark.”
Engagement has been down across Rochester’s student body, especially as they utilize the ‘block schedule.’ Instead of going through an eight-period day with 50 minutes per class, students go through three 84-minute ‘blocks’ per day, and study their subjects once or twice per week.
It’s a better set-up for distance learning than switching subjects all day, says John Marshall junior Andrew Hamm, but the extra-long lectures are tough. It was hard to stay fully engaged in the actual classroom for 50 minutes — so when you are at home and class times are nearly twice as long, the day can begin to drag on.
“At the beginning of the class, you’re ready to get work done, but by the end, you lose a lot of motivation to get that work done,” said Hamm. “So there’s not much you want to do for the next class because you know it’s going to be the same result.”
The saving grace, students say, has been the addition of “asynchronous Wednesdays,” when students and teachers alike can request one-on-one discussion or group work, and the block schedule is thrown out the window. It’s a nice change of pace that allows students to catch up on things they may have missed, but it also leaves extra free time in the afternoon.
Ali says she’s picked up an extra job during the pandemic, like hundreds of other kids that face tough financial times right now. She says Wednesdays are normally a good day to pick up shifts, but if a teacher wants to talk, it can make things difficult.
“If a teacher calls me in and I’m at work, that’s a hard thing to deal with,” said Ali. “That’s definitely something that shouldn’t go unnoticed —sometimes students are dealing with different things, during school.”
Of course, when classes went virtual, clubs and other student organizations had to do the same. Sports are back, but without student sections. There’s no pep fests, spirit days aren’t as spirited, and the social component of high school has taken a hit.
McKenzie Strenke is a sophomore at Mayo, who got involved in nearly a dozen different clubs before the pandemic shut things down. She came from Friedell, the smallest of Rochester’s public middle schools, so the sheer size of Mayo was exciting. She says she can’t wait to get that excitement back, after losing it for nearly half of her time in high school.
“‘I’m looking forward to the school dances, the pep fests, the dress-up days, the school spirit part,” said Strenke. “I want to go to a football game and not have to watch through a phone or a computer. I also dropped band [class], and I’d like to pick it back up when there’s not so many restrictions around it.”
Distance learning, as the students tell it, sounds like a blend of college and working from home — there’s less guidance from teachers, less face-to-face interaction, and the onus for success falls on the student, now more than ever.
Once April 5 rolls around, unless RPS changes things based on the governor’s guidance, the doors to high schools will open again, and if the district does get its way, everybody will be invited back. But things will not just return to normal. There will be distancing rules in place during lunch and passing time, masks will be required at all times, and desks will be spaced out in classrooms.
That thought made these four students pause: would it be worth it to go back to school?
Hamm said he would, although he wishes there were some form of hybrid learning implemented beforehand to ease people back into school. Strenke would be able to go back, but wonders why everyone’s going back at the same time, instead of prioritizing students that need extra help. She thought a hybrid model would make sense, too.
Ali’s leaning yes, but wants to see where the Covid numbers go — and she’s happy there’s no hybrid model, which she says would have been harder to organize than distance learning. And Meyer, the freshman, says she and her parents have made up their minds: she’s staying at home.
She has already waited nearly a year to actually set foot in the school, so she’s content to wait a little while longer.
“I would love to be in-person, but that line of thinking is mostly about ‘I want to see my friends. I want to have fun. I want to interact with people,’” said Meyer. “What you hear from elementary teachers is that it’s so quiet. Everyone’s spaced out, and you can’t read facial expressions under masks. I think it would be unsettling to go back, honestly, at this point, so I‘ll probably wait.”
Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.
