Cumberland County Schools students ready to adapt to virtual learning but hope for normalcy at some point
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Cumberland County Schools is taking precautions and choosing to go fully online for the beginning of the fall semester, leaving some students concerned and eager to get started.
ABC11 reached out to four students from different schools, grades and backgrounds, giving them the chance to voice their responses to the school board's Tuesday morning decision.
Tanner Bledsoe currently attends Grays Creek High School. With only a few classes left before he graduates in 2021, the senior said he's lucky his learning won't be severely impacted.
"It's hard for me to work at home, alone. I need, I need people to push me. I'm not very good at going and doing it on my own," Bledsoe said.
MORE INFO: Cumberland County Schools goes online-only for first 6 weeks of school year
It's that loss of structure and constant supervision that 8th grader Ahleah Johnson says won't stop her from getting straight A's. The young girl goes to school at Luther Nick Jeralds Middle School.
"I do feel like I would have to work a little bit harder at math, and I am a band student, and so, it's going to be really weird doing band online," Johnson said.
Meanwhile sisters Zaebah and Eyasiha Hutchinson, who go to Loyd Auman Elementary and Max Abbott Middle School respectively, are looking at the silver linings.
"I'm good with taking my classes online, cause it's still the corona, and you still don't know who has the corona," 4th grader Zaebah said.
Eyasiha told ABC11 she's okay with staying home until COVID-19 is under control and also won't mind less distractions that she would normally deal with in a classroom.
"You might need peace and quiet to study and people might move and make noises and stuff," Eyasiha said.
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All four students acknowledge online classes will make learning more challenging. Bledsoe adds he'll also have to make sure his younger siblings are doing their work.
"They can't do it as good as we can, cause we can hold ourselves accountable, we can get online, we know what we're doing, we've been doing it," Bledsoe said.
None of the K-12 students know what the online format will look like but recall not learning much back when COVID-19 derailed the latter part of the spring semester.
Johnson went on to tell ABC11 that their online curriculum was mostly review, at the time.
"It was really all over the place. But like, we didn't really learn anything new during that whole session," Johnson said.
They all understand why the decision was made but hope to see some normalcy before the school year ends.
PLANS:
North Carolina university, college COVID-19 plans for the 2020-2021 school year
Orange County Schools plan
