Our names are Apollo Anderson and Alekhya Pantula, and we are Juniors at Irvine High School. During our High School Career, we have been elected to the honor roll and are NHS members with extracurriculars. Having amassed an extensive workload with up to 7 classes to keep up with, we feel it’s necessary to make a change to the grading system. 

Closing schools was an absolute necessity to the safety of the public, and structurally, online school is a great idea to keep the flow of our education. However, with no past experience or instruction, students in California were told to immediately begin learning online. There is no support from instructors in real time, and our questions have been left unanswered. This is in no way the fault of our teachers, school, or IUSD, but an unavoidable flaw in this system. Unlike homeschoolers, there are no trained instructors or courses to guide us through this process. We are left to keep up with the same workload we had during school.

Junior year is notoriously known for being the most stressful and work heavy times of a high schooler’s life. The struggle to communicate with teachers and follow schedules that are rapidly changing are grounds for frustration and stress. To add to this, many families are struggling to support themselves economically and maintain their health. The expectations to maintain a high GPA within these conditions are unrealistic. Rather, we should have a pass/fail system. This system would allow students to learn the information for the following year while relieving a part of the immense stress we feel. During this time, our grades are often not a reflection of the effort or time we put into our studies, but a struggle to learn the information because of an inferior system.