Michigan high school students adjust to in-person classes

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In-person high school classes in Michigan came back March 1, but in April, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was encouraging schools to go virtual again.

East Lansing Public Schools have been offering in-person instruction for middle school and high school since March 1. 

John Sword, a sophomore at East Lansing High School, said online school came with a lot of difficulties and was hard to keep up with. After transitioning back to in-person classes, Sword said he feels incredible. 

He appreciates having an actual schedule and believes that in-person classes allow students to focus more and are easier to pay attention to. He also said the social aspect of high school improved greatly when they got back.

“It felt amazing because I recently got my license and I was able to drive my friends to school and do all the fun stuff,” Sword said. “It was almost just like it used to be and it’s great.”

Chippewa Valley School District is allowing high school students to attend a four-day in-person schedule (Monday-Thursday) through March 16 and April 16 with three remote Fridays (March 19, 26, and April 16).

The district’s high school students are attending from 7:15 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. with six 45-minute class periods every day. 

Dakota High School junior Evie Pozios said online classes weren’t going the greatest. She feels no one was prepared for it and it took some adjusting. Pozios also had to manage having other family members in the house while doing online classes.

After about a year of online classes Pozios felt kind of strange returning to in-person instruction but jumped back into a routine. 

“I definitely needed to see my peers that I hadn’t seen in over a year. Just getting back into a routine was really good,” Pozios said. “I actually had to wake up and get ready for school.”

She also said she wasn’t the best student online since she procrastinated a lot. Having later deadlines, she would push assignments off. Now that she is in-person, teachers want to see her progress and they’ll check in on students in class, so Pozios is held more accountable.

Dakota High School junior Evie Pozios discussed her experience with transitioning back to in-person learning.

Grosse Pointe North High School began in-person classes Jan 25 and returned to full face-to-face learning March 15.

Senior Amelia Schock said, “I think that it was a tough transition from hybrid to in-person because I got to sleep in and I felt like I had more time for myself in hybrid, but I feel like I am a better student when were (classmates) fully in-person because we have a lot more clear instructions, and it’s a lot easier to communicate with teachers and figure out what is expected of you being fully in-person.”

Grosse Pointe North senior, Amelia Schock talks about what she was looking forward to by going back to in-person classes.

Rochester Community Schools also began in-person classes March 1. 

Natalie Mclaughlin, junior at Rochester Stoney Creek High School said, “We wear masks full time, there’s different schedules every day, and we have four different lunches now. Kids can be quarantined in and out of school any minute – so, like, you can be sitting in class one minute and then get a call to go down to the office and then be out of school for two weeks.

“You are still expected to make up all the work, do all the tests and everything.”

Mclaughlin said she prefers hybrid classes, but attending in-person she is not receiving as much homework.

“I get to work at my own pace at my own time, but I do like in-person just because I barely ever have homework now. I get a lot of class time because there is not much you can teach in two hours, so we usually get a lot of extra time.”

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