One full year of living with COVID-19 is approach­ing. Justice High School students have now completed a semes­ter of online school, which began last spring. However, online school has gotten a vari­ety of mixed opin­ions from students, teach­ers, and parents. It’s been a dras­tic change that some want to keep, and others not so much.

One of the changes that was previ­ously taken for granted is the face-to-face inter­ac­tion you get with school. “I do miss the social inter­ac­tion because I’m an extro­verted person, so I love to talk to people and all. That’s the main down­side due to virtual school­ing,” said sopho­more Faria Alam.

Junior Daniel Brock felt the same way. “The main differ­ence with online school is that through­out the day you get a lot less inter­ac­tion with others, which kinda sucks.” Facial expres­sions and body language allow for a better commu­ni­ca­tion, but this seems to have been lost with virtual school.

Another point that fresh­man Thalia Outhouk brought up was “It’s been differ­ent because I think you are more respon­si­ble for your own learn­ing.” When at home, your teach­ers aren’t there to moni­tor over you, and keep you from getting distracted. Trying to stay focused during class has been a chal­lenge for many students.

There are some contrast­ing opin­ions when it comes to manag­ing school work. “It’s actu­ally been much easier for me to manage my school work and all by doing every­thing virtu­ally. As a student, I think I prefer where I am right now acad­e­m­i­cally because ever since I’ve been doing online school, my work ethic and dedi­ca­tion has grad­u­ally improved and is still going strong!” said Alam. On the other hand, many students across the coun­try feel there is more stress on them to main­tain their grades.

Plenty of students also feel like they are miss­ing out on some of the ‘high school expe­ri­ence.’ “I don’t like how we can’t do some activ­i­ties that we would normally do if we were in the class­room,” said Outhouk. 

Despite being online for so long, Fair­fax County Public Schools has started it’s return to school. Further­more, FCPS has also needed to imple­ment a new bell sched­ule due to Virgini­a’s social distanc­ing require­ments, and the amount of students allowed onto the buses. Students have also already chosen whether or not they wish to return in person for school, or stay virtual. However, students who do choose to go back to school will only attend in-person two days of the week.

Along with return­ing in person for school, sports have already made their return back in Decem­ber. However, all seasons are condensed due to the late start. If you’re look­ing for more infor­ma­tion on sports, you can go to justicehss​ports​.com.