Back to Online School

Back to Online School

Angelina Balusek, Staff Writer

Students of CCISD returned to school virtually on August 24th, a week later than originally planned. Whether you chose Clear Connections Online Academy or Brick and Mortar school, students joined Microsoft Teams meetings with their classmates and teachers to have as close as normal classes as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this year’s start of school had many obstacles and issues:

Around mid-day on August 24th, students everywhere experienced an Itslearning server error. This was due to the Itslearning website experiencing too many students online all at once. Students, teachers, and staff had trouble logging in or loading Itslearning causing many students and teachers to miss the Teams Meetings and assignments put on Itslearning. Luckily, Itslearning fixed the issue by the end of the school day.

On Tuesday August 25th one day after the first day of school, CCISD issued an early release at noon for all campuses due to Hurricane Laura in the Gulf of Mexico. This caused many students to evacuate the area and school was cancelled until August 31st meaning the whole first week of school was lost.

Monday August 31st, freshmen returned to Clear Springs with strict rules to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The day was the first to have a normal bell schedule which students online and in person had to adjust to. As of now, there are 0 COVID-19 cases at Clear Springs and the school is in a stage 5 prevention level.

“I am glad to be back at school. You have to wear a mask the whole time you are there. It is odd, but I have gotten used to it. I am glad to be able to see all of my friends. Especially the ones that I haven’t seen since elementary, because we went to different intermediate schools,” freshman Jaxon Jones said. “There are some likes and dislikes about Brick and Mortar, but I’m happy to be there.” 

“Clear Connections has been a new experience that has been hard to navigate but I’m glad I still get the chance to go to school even through this pandemic,” sophomore Chelsey Nguyen said.