Students Persevere Through Online Schooling

Due to COVID-19, Fair Grove students will be required to quarantine if they are exposed to the virus. This means if a student is exposed, they will have to attend online school from home. 

Typically if a student is around another student that tested positive for COVID-19, they will have to quarantine for 14 days. Instead of being counted as an excused absence, the student will be counted as homebound. Mr. Stallings said, “When a student is marked homebound, it means they cannot attend school, but the school is still providing instruction for them.”

If you don’t have access to WiFi at home, the school has you covered. The Fair Grove Superintendent bought personal hotspots for students that do not have WiFi at their home. The school will determine if a student will receive a hotspot when they get quarantined. Everyone has the ability to check out a personal hotspot from the school that will work with your school issued chromebook.

Turning in assignments differs from class to class. Most teachers are using google forms to submit assignments online. Other teachers will hand out work to the students, and the students will turn in their work after their quarantine is over. 

Fair Grove student Jaxon Rowden said that he had a rough time over quarantine. He said that you are not forced to do work, so you end up procrastinating, and at the end of the quarantine you have a ton of work that you need to get done. However, Rowden added that he did enjoy being able to eat in class.

Most of the students at Fair Grove enjoy seated school more than online. Esai Baird said, “I like being at school a lot more for sure, having that capability to have face to face interaction helps me learn a lot better than being at home with no one.” Another student said when you are in seated school you can be more involved in class. 

Baird said his favorite part of his quarantine was being able to have extra time to get work done. He also said the worst part of being in quarantine was not being able to interact with the class, and not being able to see all of his friends.

There is a possibility that every student could end up being quarantined at some point. The school is trying to ensure that online school works as best as possible for every student that finds themselves in a difficult situation.