With the hybrid learning enacted, students and teachers at MCHS are trying to figure out if going to in person classes is beneficial, or just hurting students. In order to try and make this style of learning work, everybody has to take responsibility for themselves and follow guidelines.

No matter what, leaving your home or going to gatherings increases your chances of contracting or spreading COVID-19. MCHS had to make tough decisions regarding if going back to school is important enough to risk the virus spreading. In the end they have decided that students will come back to school, but in a different way.

MCHS is doing hybrid learning. This means that in each classroom there will be a certain number of students depending on their last name. The beginning of the alphabet goes one day and the rest go another. Students will only be going to school for two days out of the week and lunch will not be served.

Earlier before the school year started, students were asked if they would be going hybrid or strictly online. As times change however, they were given the opportunity to change their choice if they were hybrid and wanted to go online. Students who chose online have valid reasons and concerns with going hybrid.

“I’m not going back to school because I know I would have extreme problems in gym class with my mask, and frankly I don’t trust some of the other students to follow the guidelines,” Sunnie Offerman, junior, said.

Offerman brings up an excellent point about how we can only really be responsible for ourselves. It can be hard to control other students so that definitely increases the risks of catching the virus. But we can each do our own part to keep each other safe. 

Although hybrid can come with dangers, some students struggle with learning online and need that extra in person help. 

“Students’ credit-recovery success rates and algebra test scores were lower in the online setting. Students assigned to the online option also rated their class as more difficult than did their peers assigned to the face-to-face option,” according to a study by American Institutes for Research and the University of Chicago Consortium.

Depending on where you fall on the level of difficulty with online, going hybrid might be the best personal choice for you. This choice is subjective to each student and their learning capabilities, and all we can do is make sure that everyone is responsible with their choice.