Written by Joanna Mijares
To say that the 2020 school year was unprecedented would be an understatement.
For the first time in history, instruction in Miami Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) has gone completely digital. When school was officially transferred online for Miami-Dade back in March of 2020, it was widely assumed that physical school would resume within two weeks. Yet here we are six months later beginning the new school year online. MDCPS has devised new ways to resume school digitally and there have been mixed results. After nearly one month of virtual school, students and teachers have finally begun settling into these new circumstances.
The first digital platform that Miami-Dade tried out was a digital portal called “K-12”. Though it was mandatory to use K-12 for the first week of school, however, complications with the website led to it being discontinued from use. Students would find themselves with no classes available in their portals or huge amounts of web traffic. After the K-12 fiasco, teachers began dispersing to different digital classroom sites, such as Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams. To some students, this confusion with platforms was concerning. “I feel like the very start was extremely rough, especially with how things went with k12 and the aftermath of teachers moving to different platforms until they settled teams which meant a lot of confusion for a lot of students,” said senior Matheo Gazabon.
Though online schooling may feel odd to some, a few students are enjoying their experience with online learning. Carolina Wesley, a Junior here at MAST@FIU, is especially grateful for her teachers’ communication skills. “My teachers are all doing such fantastic jobs at teaching us virtually that I might like online school more than physical school. Of course, I miss people, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” said Wesley. Indeed, as teachers and students begin settling into the online classroom environment more, communication is becoming easier and students are getting used to this new, abnormal normal.
As of September 23rd, 2020, school will be continuing digitally until at least mid-October. Although students have gotten used to digital school, there’s no denying that this school year has been unexpected and unique. As twelfth-grader Valentina Alonso put it, “Managing heavy amounts of schoolwork is especially stressful when you aren't around your friends, but I have hopes that eventually things will go back to normal. Until then, we’ll just have to be positive and innovative.”