It’s hard to find anyone at PHS who wants to return to remote learning. The last couple years of Zoom meetings in lieu of in-person classes resulted in social isolation and a poor learning environment for students at PHS. With the world slowly recovering, the district debuted a new policy surrounding remote learning. The administration decreed that students are no longer allowed to learn virtually. This new policy, intended to bring a sense of normalcy back to PHS, means that even if a student is out of school because they have to quarantine with COVID-19, they are not allowed to participate in their classes using Zoom. However, such a policy is a step back for education.

Despite the obvious downsides to learning on Zoom, such as the inability for students to truly connect with teachers and peers, the application is still a valuable tool and should not be disparaged. Zoom is just one of many beneficial technologies that we were introduced to during the pandemic. For example, we all adapted to Canvas and are now comfortable using it for almost all of our assignments. We also adapted to online textbooks, eliminating the need to lend out physical copies which are easily lost. The district’s efforts to move on from virtual learning ignore the benefits that it has offered and will be able to offer its students.

Requiring students to quarantine after contracting COVID-19 while simultaneously taking away their ability to virtually participate in class makes it difficult for them to stay up to date with their work. Therefore, this new decision encourages sick students to come into school when they are supposed to be quarantined or opt to not test for COVID-19 at all. While infection rates are low right now, our town is still not quite in the clear yet, with Mercer County still exceeding 150 reported active cases as recently as October 5. Ignoring the reality that COVID-19 is still with us and making it harder for students to isolate will encourage transmission at the high school, and ultimately keep the pandemic around for longer.

Even beyond COVID-19, the district should also consider allowing students who are absent for other reasons to use Zoom; for instance, if a student had strep throat, they would still be able to follow along with a lecture from home. But if they were not allowed to listen in virtually, they would be compelled to attend school to understand the material, which could cause the contagious disease to quickly spread through the student body. Of course, students shouldn’t be able to just stay home for any reason — the school should still enforce the absence limit and ask for forms of verification like doctor’s notes.

Such a policy would not be without precedent: at Princeton University, professors are required to either Zoom sick students into class or record their lectures for the entire duration of the students’ quarantine, thus ensuring that their students can remain engaged throughout the semester. While high school courses may not be as fast-paced or rigorous as university classes, they are still demanding — missing just one math class, for example, could leave a student an entire unit behind the rest of the class. The pandemic was a painful period for everyone, but it would be a mistake to try to wipe away all of the things that it left behind. The district needs to reconsider its decision to cancel online learning. The worst thing PHS can do right now is forget all of the lessons that COVID-19 taught us. Permitting the careful use of applications like Zoom would benefit everyone at our school.