Palisadian Students Share Distance Learning Experiences

By Lily Tinoco | Reporter

Weeks have passed since campuses first closed in response to COVID-19 and students are continuing to adjust to learning from home—especially with closures extending through the academic year.

Palisadian sisters Leena and Layla Adeli shared with the Palisadian-Post about their experiences so far.

Leena, a seventh-grader at Paul Revere Charter Middle School, uses Schoology to turn in her assignments and attends classes on Zoom, following a block schedule.

“At the beginning when we started doing online school, it was a little hard to stay on track because it was all so new,” Leena said. “But I feel that now it’s slowly starting to get easier.”

Leena expressed the challenges of distance learning: She worries about her work being submitted correctly or a document not going through.

Her sister Layla, a freshman at Palisades Charter High School, faced a few challenges of her own.

“It’s a little bit difficult, when I had a question to ask my teacher, we would go into the classroom during lunch to ask about the curriculum or what we were learning that day, for instance math,” Layla said. “Now we have to just send emails to our teachers because some of them don’t do video conferences, they just put stuff online.”

As a solution, Layla sets up a call with her peers to complete their work together and appoints one person to email any questions they may have.

“It’s difficult not being able to personally ask a question,” Layla said.

Layla signs into her classes through Schoology and takes attendance quizzes to demonstrate her engagement, and attends video conferences two to three times per week.

“Some teachers taught us how to use the video conferences, but some of them didn’t know how to use it themselves, so within the first few days, we all just kind of learned how to do it,” Layla said. “We were all just trying to adapt.”

Palisadian Rowan Jen, a freshman at Harvard Westlake, shared that his school moved to distance learning about two weeks ago, but the biggest drawback is not being able to keep in touch with his peers.

“We’re not able to interact with our classmates, you don’t get to feel that same energy that you do when you’re at school,” Jen said. “But in terms of schoolwork and the ability to keep up with material, it has worked pretty well and I haven’t had any problems transitioning.”

Jen shared that he attends each class period at its corresponding time on Zoom, following a normal school day. His school and teachers have been very communicative about the adjustment.

He acknowledged that not all students are experiencing this smooth transition.

“We had the privilege of getting to use computers every day and having WiFi at school, and I think that’s part of the reason this transition is smoother for us,” Rowan said. “In no way am I trying to speak on behalf of students who don’t have these same privileges, I think the transition there would be a lot more difficult.”

As campus closures remain in place indefinitely, state and local officials will provide guidance  on when it will be safe to reopen school facilities.

If your student would like to talk with the Post about their experience with distance learning, email lily@palipost.com.