Pottsgrove School District Still in Motion During Quarantine!

All of America may be shut down but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn! That is the attitude being used by schools all over the country. Almost every school in America is now closed until further notice due to the worsening Coronavirus Pandemic. All Pennsylvania and New Jersey Schools are closed indefinitely. Schools across the country are now having to make the transition from regular public/private schools to online schools. This week, Pottsgrove School District began that process. Every High School Student in Pottsgrove is provided with a laptop, and every Middle School Student is provided with an iPad. This made the switch a lot easier for Pottsgrove compared to other schools. 

Pottsgrove has recommended 3 programs for students and teachers to use; Schoology, Remind, and Zoom. Schoology was already being used frequently in Pottsgrove. There, teachers and staff can post updates, assignments, and even give tests. Schoology has had loading and lagging issues throughout the week likely due to the increased activity from the quarantine. Remind is self-explanatory. It is used by teachers to remind students of upcoming assignments. Zoom is a relatively new program that is now being used by schools across the country. It is a video conferencing app. This allows teachers to have more direct communication with students. 

This has been a tough switch for students, teachers, and staff alike at Pottsgrove. In 2 weeks, Pottsgrove has had to go from a regular school to a cyber school. I asked Pottsgrove Sophomore Haley Krasely, Senior David Rabinowitz, and Freshman Isabella Nagy what their thoughts were on the first week of this new system. “I couldn’t get into Schoology for a while, but other than that, everything went great,” said Sophomore Haley Krasley. The good news about Schoology is that in the coming weeks, these issues will likely be fixed. David Rabinowitz said, “there was too much work.” Monday was technically the last day of the 3rd quarter so this week isn’t really going to be a good example of how much work students will get on a daily basis. “Some things went wrong, but it could’ve been a lot worse,” said Freshman Isabella Nagy. That sums up this week in Pottsgrove pretty well. There were a lot of problems but Pottsgrove is, fortunately, a lot more prepared for this than other schools.