Due to the change in zone color from yellow to orange, the High School and the rest of the Sweet Home district had to shift to remote learning. This shift has opened the opportunity for the district to utilize a 4-day remote schedule instead of the current 2-day schedule. The Board of Education has had multiple meetings regarding schooling, especially how they can maximize the time students spend learning. After much discussion about the pros and cons of each schedule, it was determined that for the time being the 2-day remote schedule will remain. We asked The Panther Eye staff to weigh in on the situation and here’s what they had to say…

“We should continue with the current 2-day schedule. By increasing the amount of days students will learn remotely, you decrease the amount of time students have to complete the work. This would mean that teachers would have to limit the amount of work assigned, which definitely won’t happen. Besides, increasing to a 4-day remote schedule would cause negative mental and physical health effects for students. Students could see increased depression, anxiety, and could start to have eye strain from watching a screen all day. It also makes no sense to go to a 4-day remote schedule with winter break right around the corner.” ~ Matt McGowan, Editor-in-Chief

“Personally, I believe that the 2-day schedule would be more beneficial to students. The 4-day schedule might come across as overwhelming and will most likely stress kids out more. Also, having more kids in the class will most likely make it more difficult for shy students to participate in class. Between having homework and a 4-day schedule, it would be incredibly difficult. Most students have a hard time during the 2-day schedule. We really need to focus on students’ mental health because many are silently struggling and I feel as though a 4-day schedule would just increase the anxiety. I believe that since this is only temporary we should stick with the 2-day schedule.” ~ Bailey Marranca, Life & Arts Editor

“I definitely think that the 2-day remote schedule is better than the 4-day remote schedule. I say this because being on meetings all day is tiring and draining. You stay in the same spot staring at a screen for hours on end. At least in school you’re moving around, interacting with others face to face. The work is interactive during in-person, and on meetings we’re just listening to notes most of the time. Also, if we’re on meetings four days a week, when will we do the packets of work that we get from each class? We do that on the two days off, but if we’re on meetings we can’t do that work. They told us we should be doing “school” during school hours, but when school ends we would have to do the work after school hours. I believe, that the 4-day remote schedule would be to much and draining for all the students.” ~ Lexi Herrmann, Opinions Editor

“Personally, I’d prefer the 2-day a week remote schedule instead of the 4-day schedule. Two days of meetings are very draining since you’re staying in your house, usually in one spot, for hours at a time. I also don’t think we should do meetings 4-days a week because of the screen time. Kids in high school are already on their phones for so many hours a day, and having school on our iPads for this many hours a day on top of that would be too much screen time. I feel as if the 2-day meetings have been going well so far and most kids (that I know) are already doing all of their work, so I don’t think there is a problem with only doing zooms two days of the week.” ~ Olivia Weissenburg, Sports Editor

“I believe that 4-day online week will be suited for this orange zone period. That way one group doesn’t get a more taxing daily assignment week. Also the attendance percentage will increase due to students not waking up at a preposterous time on their online learning days. To be quite frank,  the position I stand on online learning is completely biased and based on my experience with 2-day learning I find the instructions for the assignments quite vague in some areas. But that’s just my opinion.“ ~ Ayo Agboola

“I personally much rather prefer a 2-day format, for as long as the pandemic is still going on. With a 2-day format, you can do remote learning without it being too exhausting, and you can also do in person learning without it being too unsafe. With a 4-day format, doing remote learning would be mentally draining, looking at a screen for six hours a day, four days a week. Also, you can’t do in person learning on a 4-day schedule as that would just be irresponsible, considering the present circumstances.” ~ Ryan Burke

“I prefer the 2-day routine because I get more free time on the days that aren’t remote. If four days were all remote, I would get less time to complete school work and relax.“ ~ Eli Crowther

“I feel as if I would much rather have the 2-day remote schedule over the 4-day remote schedule. I feel this way because I feel that the 2-day weeks have been going very good for me and have been very productive. I learn enough on the two days that I am able to practice everything I learned on my off day assignments. I feel that it’d be a lot to do four days of meetings and I believe that I am learning just as much as I was during hybrid in-person learning. I feel that we should just keep the current 2-day routine until break because we only have a week and a half before break starts!” ~ Lauren Hubert

“To me it really doesn’t matter. I will just do whatever because I don’t have a preference. I’ll just go along with what everyone else wants or what’s easiest for everyone.” ~ Yuri Jaxx

“I think we should keep going with the 2-day remote because it’s bad enough that we have to spend two whole days staring at a screen. It can cause bad posture, hurt our eyes, and cause stress. During this time of quarantine, it can be already stressful for students having to stay at home all the time due to the virus. With just two days remote, we can actually get out of our rooms and get some fresh air on the other three days of the week. We can actually move our bodies and if students have questions, they can just join for office hours. It would really help our mental health.” ~ April Kabalan

“I personally prefer a 2 day zoom. I prefer this because everyday, my screen time is very high, and my battery percentage is very low. At the end of the school day, my eyes hurt, and I’m stiff since I haven’t moved in awhile. 4 day zoom would be too much. I understand that it could help people ask questions while on zoom, and have other advantages but there is also office hours that are optional where you could do this.” ~ Aimee Kabalan

“Originally, I didn’t like the idea of having meetings all week. I thought that it didn’t allow for enough time to work on my own. I like the idea of having four synchronous days. It allows for more lessons to be taught by the teacher versus having to figure it out on our own. It also allows for questions to be asked. Personally, I have not attended many office hours to ask questions; I have tried to do it through email. It was too awkward in my opinion to be one on one with someone I hardly knew. With a class full of other students, it’s not so bad.” ~ Morgan Popp

“I feel that it could be beneficial to students education to have a 4-day synchronous learning model. With this model it could help provide that contact that students may need with their teachers in order to learn effectively, however with the 4-day model comes the exhaustion of being tied down to a screen all day for almost a full school week. As we already know, there has been studies that show students mental health can be severely impacted from staring at a screen for days in end.” ~ Hunter Tryloff

“I prefer the 4-day zoom schedule honestly. I am bored when I am not doing zooms during the day. I feel like the days I’m not on zoom, I’m teaching myself and I don’t really understand what I’m doing. I can’t ask questions, and I am just going through the material instead of actually understanding it. I feel like having a zoom schedule four days a week would require students to be more responsible, but it will be beneficial. We can do the work with teachers as they explain it, ask questions, and interact with people.” ~ Maddie VanDusen

“I prefer the 2-day remote schedule. This is because it’s hard not being in an interactive and normal classroom two days. It takes longer to get work done, not only because in way you’re teaching yourself, but our teachers have different homework schedules which makes it harder to keep up. By following a 2-day remote schedule, we have the chance to ask the questions we have to our teachers and complete all of our work.” ~ Isabella Vega

“I would rather follow the 2-days remote schedule just because it’s always a bit easier to get my school work done when I don’t have class daily. Then I’m not stressing to get to classes just about every day of the week.” ~ Derek Woodford

Matt McGowan

Matt is in his senior year at Sweet Home High School and this year will be his fourth year with The Panther Eye. Matt is the current Editor-in-Chief and maintains all Panther Eye social channels. He enjoys soccer, music and participating in Stage Crew. If interested in joining The Panther Eye team contact Matt using the options below.