After this crazy and hectic year, students and teachers alike are looking forward to a break. Yet soon after summer, the school year will roll up and both students and teachers will come back to school with their fresh tans and school supplies. But after a year of remote learning, hybrid, four lunches, quarantining, and more, how will next year go?

It’s no secret that this year’s education has been difficult compared to the past few years. Teachers were not able to fit in all the topics they usually do and students did not learn or fully understand everything that they usually would. This leads into next year, where often the previous year’s education has an effect on the current one because students build on what they learned. 

So how will teachers respond to this and take action? 

Some of these classes that require at least some prior knowledge and at a certain point, a level of skill are language classes. Senora Kiernan, the Pentucket High School’s Spanish 3 teacher, says that she and the faculty understand this concern, explaining“students should come in optimistically and trust me to help them adjust.”

Kiernan says “I don’t think that students need to be concerned about passing to the next level because all the faculty understands the challenges that we all faced. All though I’m personally assuming a certain amount of proficiency and a certain amount of common knowledge, I will be reviewing the basics and providing students with the resources they need. I will be teaching them what I want them to know and giving them the chance to demonstrate it..”

So it seems that teachers understand, but how do students feel?

Sophomore Zoe Wegrzyn actually feels confident and “great” about transitioning into next year.  Wegrzyn states that “I think I’m going to have more skills going into it this year because we learned remote and feel like we adapted to this and we are going to use the skills to make us stronger next year, so I’m excited.” She overall feels confident even though next year will be a bit more difficult as she is taking harder classes.

Sophomore Rose Seeley also feels hopeful for next year being better. Seeley says she is “feeling a little anxious about next year. I feel prepared for some classes next year with the education that I’ve gotten this year. I do not feel like the transition will be too difficult with work etc next year.”

As next year is going to bring its own challenges, some students have some advice for teachers. Wegrzyn states that she “honestly believes that they have been doing a great job” and that after this year, it would be great to do more group work as many have been isolated and did little this year. Zoe believes that the school needs to become more connected next year because due to the pandemic, that sense of connection was lost. Coming to school and just doing schoolwork is not ideal, and she believes doing group work would be the solution. Seeley thinks that teachers should be more lenient with due dates than they were with previous years, explaining“we were in school full time to help transition back to a regular school year.”

There’s no doubt that this year was a mess and chaotic for both students and teachers. The best thing anyone can do is take the summer break and regroup themselves and come back next year ready to go with a positive attitude. Happy summer!