Lack of preparation downside to online learning

Pete Kilbride thinks the biggest downside to online learning as initiated in Wyoming schools last spring was that the school districts went in without preparation.

One day students were in classes, and the next, they weren’t.

But Kilbride, who’s superintendent of Sheridan County School District 1 – the schools in Big Horn, Ranchester and Dayton – said in his opinion the greatest hardship to students was the loss of the social/emotional connection.

He said he thinks that’s especially true for the elementary school students, because they’re so closely connected to their teachers. Students continued their classes online, via computer, but they didn’t have the personal day-to-day contact with their teachers.

Still, Kilbride said, students can get caught up on the academics. What can’t be made up, he said, is the social and emotional connection or the closure they usually have at the end of the year, such as the end-of-school party where they can say goodbye to their teachers.

He said everything ended in one day, and the students didn’t get to see their teachers for six months., until school resumed in the classrooms this fall.