By Jackson Wedel, Staff Writer
This fall marked the Sacramento City Unified School District’s first transition to a full-time, regular school schedule since the pandemic shutdown in March 2020. More and more students have been vaccinated, making this transition possible. While some students chose to attend half-day sessions in-person in spring, going to a full-day, 6-class schedule represents a significant change in students’ daily routines.
In McClatchy’s 2020-21 school year, most days had three periods, alternating between sets of Periods 1, 3, and 5 and of Periods 2, 4, and 6. The periods were 80 minutes long, split into 40 minutes of synchronous work and 40 minutes of asynchronous work. Mondays were the exception: while students attended all of their classes, the periods were around 40 minutes each. However, the current schedule took a sharp turn, with 60-minute periods for every class every day.
A common concern for students was that their study habits were negatively affected by distance learning. Beldon Lee (‘22) said, “It’s gonna hit me way harder since I literally didn’t do that much work for almost two years.”
However, students and teachers alike are optimistic about gaining a deeper interpersonal connection through learning. Jaime Garcia (‘24) noted, “In distance learning, it was hard to reach out to your teachers and have a good connection.” Lee agreed, adding that in-person learning “makes discussing a whole lot more engaging ‒ it’s not just the teacher and a bunch of boxes around their faces talking to themselves”.
Teachers have similarly optimistic feelings about a return to the classroom. Physics teacher Roscoe Ahn said, “Everything took longer online,” and that “some of the kids are a little further behind than usual, but we’ll just try and do our best to catch them all up”.
Ahn believes the period of distance learning helped him improve his curriculum. “I think going over last year when we had so much less actual teaching time made me prioritize what we kept in, and I think this year I’m now building off of that,” he said.
Outside of class itself, students were excited about many of the other interactions that come with in-person learning. “I think distance learning has definitely made me appreciate my friends more and the whole social aspect,” Lee mentioned. “What COVID has taught me is that your social life is important for your mental health and physical health,” said Garcia.
One particularly exciting point was the prospect of sports and other extracurriculars returning to McClatchy. “I’m excited for events. I want to attend something, go to a football game,” mentioned Garcia. Ahn echoed the sentiment, saying, “Probably for me, the most exciting thing is that sports are back. I think that’s an important part of the high school experience.”
Overall, the prevailing attitude among students and faculty alike was of excitement. When asked to choose between in-person or distance learning, Ahn, Garcia, and Lee all resoundingly preferred in-person school.