Leilani Zimmerman, senior at Aragon High School

The Catalyst (TC): Can you tell me about a typical school day for you right now? 

Leilani Zimmerman (LZ): A typical school day would consist of waking up at 8:30 and starting class at nine. Then, we get a 10 or 15 minute break in between each class, and we have three to four classes a day depending on what day because we started using a block schedule. We didn’t use that with in-person classes. We also have all seven classes on Wednesdays, but the district is trying to figure out if we should switch that to an asynchronous day. 

TC: Would you say that in your online classes, you’re actually learning material? 

LZ: Yes. I’m learning in my online classes, but it’s definitely harder than it was in person. I need to schedule more appointments with my teachers and stay on calls extra long just to make sure that I know what’s going on in class. So it’s definitely harder to learn but I’m still learning.

TC:  Do you like online school because you can wake up later and get more sleep every day?

LZ: I like it because it’s not as much work as in-person classes are. I think we should have done block scheduling in person because it’s easier and it’s less stress on students.  So online school is good because of that, but I do miss my friends and seeing teachers in-person because it helps me learn and make connections with people. 

TC: Is there anything more that you would like to say about online school?

LZ: I think it was a good experience to have. It makes me appreciate in-person classes more because I didn’t really appreciate them before all of this. I really miss going to school.