Back in March 2020 already five years ago, every public school district across the U.S. closed its doors because of Covid-19. For 18 months, school was like it never was before. Homes became classrooms, IPads and laptops became the classrooms. By fall 2022, much of K-12 education had reverted to a state of “normal.” Schools went back to in-person learning, extracurricular activities resumed, and mask mandates disappeared. However, one cannot help but wonder whether Eire High has been able to get back to what was normal after the historic disruptions of COVID-19. It also raises serious questions about the long-term impacts that the lockdown and associated measures have put on students. In an attempt to compensate for the enormous amount of instructional time lost during the pandemic, the district moved to mitigate these losses by implementing a system known as asynchronous learning, a model which effectively eliminates the concept of the traditional snow day. But students and teachers have found that these online learning days are not as useful or effective as they were initially supposed to be. Alan Culpepper, who is both a Health Teacher and Head Physical Education Coach at Eire, saying that, “I find asynchronous days unproductive and frankly bring back uneasy and negative feelings reminding me back when we were in lockdown.” He continues to describe how such days have the potential to generate feelings that are not quite pleasant, reminding him of the difficult period when we were in lockdown. I think having days off for weather is a good way to refresh”  and he is not alone in this,ETN reaching out to many staff at Erie ranging from English teachers to student counselors. Every single staff member that was I was asked about asynchronous learning days responding with a similar fashion admitting their displeasure with the online learning days. However some do side with the district policy, Greg Miller a special education teacher commented “I think they have value from the district perspective, as it allows us to ensure that we hit our minimum number of days in school without having to tack days on the end of the calendar, which occasionally used to happen. So I think we should keep them” the debate around asynchronous learning days is only one part of a larger debate around the integration of technology into schools today and lingering effects on students at Erie High as a result of the covid pandemic. Due to the 2020 lockdown the current freshmen were  only 10 years old and in the 4th grade, a very important development time for socialization, communication and self awareness and now they are in there first year of high school a very important time in the development of social skills and for five years they only had screens for interaction with fellow classmates has had a detrimental effect on a wide variety of communication skills, Alan Culpepper says that “I have noticed that students in that 10-12 year old window during Covid were negatively impacted in terms of self advocacy, communication for sure and technology as a coping mechanism to offset a lack of self confidence or pacifier for boredom.” However there is benefit in having more electronics used in the classroom, such as students being more familiar with electronic forms of learning than opposed to more brick and mortar classrooms, students can easily reach out to teachers in regards to late or missing assignments and vice versa. But many teachers are adamant in that they wish cell phones were removed from school altogether, saying that they are nothing more than a distraction in their classrooms, saying that cell phones take away from more organic social interactions at school and that phones in the classroom are detrimental to students’ mental health. Similar things are being said, and actions are being taken all across the country with some school districts in California outright banning phones, forcing students to put them in lockable pouches however, parents raised concerns that in the event of an emergency they would not be able to get in contact with their students if the schools Outright band the usage of cell phones within schools. Overall, the use of modern technology, regardless if it’s a cell phone, iPad or laptop is a huge complicated issue that is only now beginning to be debated but it is undeniable the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown have had on students. And asynchronous learning days are just one part of a massive complicated problem.

The school issued technology, has been one of the bigger issues of the five years since the start of in person education, Alan Culpepper says “With this, younger students are rushing through the testing in order to use their devices for gaming or watching shows/videos.”, Alan Culpeper says that there must be some kind of regulation to prevent students from accessing games, TV, any device that can interfere with their ability to learn during school hours. The technology access has always been a problem for students even before COVID-19, but during the lockdown, the use of non-learning materials had doubled over the time period of the lockdown.

Another cause for concern is the asynchronous day that takes place at Erie High.

The asynchronous days have many benefits and disadvantages, Alan Culpeper says

“I find asynchronous days unproductive and frankly bring back uneasy and negative feelings reminding me back when we were in lockdown.” This sits with many people who have the same thoughts about the asynchronous day at Erie High, these days the asynchronous days always seems like the students don’t even attend them they seem to skip out on the school work for the asynchronous days and just go ahead and relax and take a break from school like most students do for their mental health, Alan Culpeper says “I think having days off for weather are a good way to refresh and are few and far between so being asynchronous is not an added benefit.” The teachers don’t see a reason for asynchronous days also, as Alan Culpeper said “I think having days off for weather are a good way to refresh and are few and far between.” This shows that Alan Culpeper sees a benefit in the snow days for the students’ mental  health to help them reset themselves for the next day of school.

There are some benefits to snow days for students, but even the teachers can have a reset day to get stuff that they need to get done and don’t have to worry about teaching to students for a day. But due to COVID-19 we made a new way to learn high school, Keri Mitchell says “The pandemic encouraged us to think in innovative ways, leading to the creation of new schools and educational approaches. As we navigated unprecedented challenges, we embraced creativity and developed LaunchED, the district’s online school, to ensure educational opportunities are available to all.” The pandemic has been a major challenge for many but the school district made it clear that Eire High cared about the students and the students education, the school embraced their creativity side, to help the students learn and grow as people. Erie High school has shown that education can be delivered through a lot of ways Keri Mitchell says “As we look toward the future, we recognize that education is constantly evolving in how it can be delivered.” This means that the future of learning could change completely. AI could teach students in the future anything is possible, learning keeps evolving. And the shift of digital learning has major benefits but it also has consequences, Greg Miller states “I do think there’s been a meaningful shift, and I think it’s by and large helpful– more options for students to complete school is a good thing, in my mind. The downside is that it puts a lot of responsibility on the student, which can go bad when that responsibility is given to teens.” Greg Miller is saying that the students have more of an opportunity to complete school work, but he also says that students get a major responsibility when they do that, it makes it harder for students to complete other assignments. It makes the students feel more uncomfortable when they have this responsibility weighing on their future selves. All these issues are effects from COVID-19 that still exist today, some are benefits, and some are downsides for students and teachers alike.