It's common knowledge that Franklin Regional School District is extremely academically focused, and does all in its power to make sure that FRSD students excel in every area possible. The standards are high, but should students still be held to these extremely high standards during the Covid-19 pandemic? I don't think so, and I've seen that many other students agree. The work load, as well as the lack of flexibility and empathy for students are just some of the ways that FRSD is failing its students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

First off, the workload is very excessive to be honest. While the amount of work usually isn't light, we've been expected to take on far more than usual, mainly due to the excuse that we have more time at home. This added with mandatory zoom classes every single day is adding copious amounts of stress on us students. Our times to have breaks have been completely filled with finishing up assignments thanks to the misconception that we have so much time. Instead of having approximately 24 hours including a QRT period to turn assignments in, we often only have the time from class until 12:00 am now. Even the shortened Wednesday schedule, which was created to be a bit easier on us, has just become an excuse for teachers to assign us more work instead of giving us a break. This is hard on all of us, but especially neuro-divergent students. Thanks to the complete lack of separation between home and school, the new distractions being home brings, and the excessive work, it's much harder for neuro-divergent students to handle. The expectation is also hard for students that work part-time jobs. The schoolwork that was once easy for them to balance with work is suddenly becoming too much, resulting in dropping grades and missing assignments. To add, attendance expectations have also become much stricter. Before Covid-19, kids weren't penalized for having to take a day or two off if we were sick. Now, we're expected to be in school no matter what, and it's very unrealistic. Tests that could once be made up the day after are suddenly expected to be completed the day of regardless of the student's reason for being out. It needs to be recognized that just because we're at home more often doesn't mean that it's easier for us to complete excessive amounts of work.

Secondly, there needs to be more empathy for the students. While we're all having a very hard time adjusting to and coping with the pandemic, It needs to be recognized that school might not be everybody's first priority. There are students that have family and friends being hospitalized due to Covid-19, and even losing loved ones to it. There are also some students that have parents that have lost jobs and are struggling financially. It's unfair to expect students to still work through school with all of the scary things happening around us. On top of that, so much has been taken away from our lives. This includes students and teachers alike, so it feels wrong that our newfound free time is being exploited to get us to do even more draining schoolwork. For some kids, extra-curriculars are the main motivation for them to go to school. With many of these being taken away due to Covid restrictions, how are kids expected to be equally as motivated for school? Due to the pandemic, mental health concerns have been on the rise, but it feels that our school hasn't really addressed it, nor really pushed for any accommodations to support us. 

Lastly, I want to address the rules we're expected to follow for Zoom classes. I've already addressed that being in mandatory online classes is very tiring, but it doesn't help that we're staring at screens from 7:22 am to 2:18 pm. This isn't a different experience from most people during all of this, but taking measures to reduce screen time would be beneficial to students. To add, while it's not required in every class, keeping cameras on is not only contributing to the existing screen fatigue, but is also ignoring the fact that not every student has the luxury of a nice work area. Not everybody's home life is great, and keeping cameras on for some students may feel embarrassing for them. 

To conclude, the difficulty of school should adjust to our experiences during the pandemic. It isn't fair that with the disappearance of normalcy from our lives, we are getting double the work as well as less tolerance for mistakes. Some things that would help both students and teachers during this time would be giving a lighter workload, potentially eliminating homework as a whole, as well as giving more flexibility to students to complete work instead of being constantly synchronous, especially for fully online students. These solutions would make learning much easier for students at home. The model of teaching needs to be adjusted to accommodate for the diverse situations that are being faced at home and in school instead of proceeding as if everything is normal. This year is enough of a challenge for everybody, so making school an added extreme stressor isn't fair to students. If we're still expected to prioritize school, we shouldn't be asked to do and live up to so much. If FRSD could advocate more for their students and recognize these difficulties, I believe that we can have a much better school environment for both staff and students.