The Bad and Good of our Blended School Semester

The last day my high school junior was at school was October 26. Today is December 3rd.

No, our district is not virtual only. We follow the A/B model. My son is on the A-team, which means he goes to school Mondays and Tuesdays.

His last day was the Monday when the rare Oklahoma ice storm blew in knocking out power for thousands and causing more tree damage than ever before on record. School was cancelled the next day.

Two days later, the sun was back out. My son was working on school assignments at home before he would head up to school for football when we got a call from school. Another one of his teammates tested positive for Covid. This time around though, my son was outside the three month period the CDC gives as immunity to people who have had Covid (my son had in June). He was forced then to quarantine for the next two weeks.

When finally he was free to go back to school, he went to football practice, just not class since Thursdays aren’t his school days. By the time of our playoff game the next night, the district had decided to go all virtual the following week leading up to Thanksgiving. So no school for him afterall. Thanksgiving week we had off from school anyway, and just like that – four weeks of no school.

Without any classroom time for over a month my son is falling behind. I don’t blame the school or his teachers, there are videos for him to watch. But considering my other two kids needed extra tutoring for math even with five-days a week in-person instruction, I’m not surprised he is struggling to understand and keep up.

If math were the only problem it wouldn’t be awful, but it’s every subject. Surely it’s not just us?? But, after a rough fall last year grade-wise due to concussion complications and spring cut short due to Covid of course, he needed this year to bring up his GPA. Now though the college application process is upon him in just another six months.

The blended school model has not been good for my son—and yet it has.

I could’ve done more to micro-manage his schoolwork. Had I, perhaps his grades this semester and his overall GPA would be higher, which in turn would reflect better on his college applications. But the way I see it, learning a little bit the hard way about time-management and proactive communication with teachers will serve him better in college than had I taken full control.

For this reason, the blended school model has been good for my son.

What I left off before is my son could’ve gone to school this Monday and Tuesday, instead he went on a quick hunting trip with his dad. My husband planned it after the district went all virtual in November. We didn’t expect school the switch back to the A/B schedule before the Christmas holidays, so my husband thought it was the perfect opportunity to take our sons on their first deer hunt. Unfortunately, our older son got sick (not Covid) and didn’t get to go. But my high schooler made memories with my husband that he’ll never forget. Trigonometry he probably will.

For this reason, the flexible school model has been good.

One more reason, the semester has been good. We’re down to our final kid at home. With less going on this semester and half the week at home (or in my son’s case this past month), we’ve had time with him we would have never had otherwise. So as much as I am ready for the Covid vaccine and all-day, every-day school, I wouldn’t trade the conversations and laughter this semester affored us with our son. Maybe, it was just what he needed too.