Poor Attendance.  Low Grades.  Cheating.  Though we are back in the swing of things and a feeling of normalcy is returning to school, Lakota West is still experiencing the negative effects of covid-19 when it comes to education. 

LOW PERFORMANCE.

There has been a significant drop in grades, as well as attendance, ever since Covid-19 made its hard hit. 

Ms.Bell, an English teacher has reported that “it’s frustrating because students have fallen so far behind that I have to reteach the content. For example, a lot of students can’t write a simple paragraph. It’s like you have to reteach before we can do the assignment.” It’s clear that due to the remote option some students have lost their ability to do the most basic things in the classroom, resulting in more confusion and more stress on the overall school environment.

And it’s not due to remote learning — student illnesses also need to be taken into account. Due to the high level of absences because more students and teachers were been getting sick, students may have some sort of gap in their education, increasing their lack of understanding of content.

Not only are bad grades at an all time high right now, but there are also reports of failure. Ms. Bell has also reported that she’s had more failures this year in the third quarter than she’s had in her past eight years of teaching. And it’s hard for our teachers to help when students have lost their drive to do work, pay attention, and ask for corrections when needed. 

The time that we were stuck at home has almost switched students’ mindsets to just “passing,” and not putting their all into the work.  One student has reported that they often hear from their friends that their grades have dropped due to the virus. Another teacher, Mrs. Jurowski, has reported that “teachers are naturally understanding and empathetic, so we worked with students last year, but we as teachers are ready to raise expectations again.  Students are not and have not been ready for this.” As soon as students are ready to get back on track, a rise in grades will finally be able to show again. 

When thinking ahead for the future, this lack of motivation by students will only lead to more problems when it comes to college and getting into a dream school. College is another massive change that comes with a lot of importance for students’ futures overall.

CHEATING.

During remote learning, cheating was prevalent — it was easy to do with so many assignments online — and even group texting of quiz and test questions became common so students could spend less time doing work. This has hands down also hurt students’ education and achievement now that we are back in the classroom. Not only does it affect the students, but it also affects their teachers. The cheating aspect has a lot to do with the idea that students lost the feeling of “teacher interaction.” When talking to a fellow student about their perspective they mentioned, “ I have noticed that students around me are not as motivated in class. Teachers changed teaching styles by not being as hands-on and turning to the computer for most assignments.” Students may feel as being in the classroom has made their work harder, especially since teachers are now doing most assignments on the computer. They have gotten so used to cheating in order to take the easy way out and be guaranteed a good grade. 

STATISTICS

Covid-19 began back in 2020 right after Spring break and from then on the failures made by students had only increased. When looking at the statistics from the 2019-2022 first semester the drop is prominent, in 2019, 377 failures were reported by students at the Lakota West main campus and 545 were reported in 2020. 168 more students gave up on school because of the high rate of lack of motivation. Thankfully, these numbers have gone down significantly in our 2022 school year with 328 reported failures, obviously, it would be nice to see no failures but as more students are coming back in person,  improvement is not going unnoticed. The lowest number of failures was back in 2018 when covid was two years away when students’ only option was to attend school in person. The best solution for this would be for Lakota West to take away the remote option. 

Overall, Lakota will have to take away the remote option at some point so students can get back into attending school. Five months out of school has resulted in a two-year makeup for teachers. They spend more time reteaching the basics than the actual content intended for the class, which only pushes back their lesson plan. Once everyone comes back to school and the feeling of failure sets in for most students, that urge to work hard for a great future will come back. Remote learning is an easy way to cheat and only failing our teachers and students each day.