Many students have heard over and over how many credits they will need in order to graduate, and they also all know the struggle of juggling your schedule to make sure that you have everything. Students are required to have four credits of literature, science and math.
Three credits for social studies and then it's optional to have three credits of a foreign language. That leaves two slots open to fill with what that student wants to do. In the state of Georgia, students are required to have a credit of P.E. and a credit of health. But the problem is this: what about students who are unable to fit this into their schedule? Well they have the option of paying to take the class online for a specific amount of weeks that they choose.
For those who go to Lambert High School, their schedule might include a pathway, whether it be business, culinary or healthcare. They might also be in band, chorus, or musical theater. Maybe their freshmen year, instead of taking a social studies class, they took AP Human Geography which is for some odd reason not a credit for social studies. Say this same student is also in band, in the healthcare pathway and does not plan on quitting either during their high school career. This specific student now has to take P.E. and Health online. The thing is, P.E. online is not the same as P.E. in an actual high school.
In P.E. at an actual school, students take quizzes with their notes and may occasionally have to participate in actual physical activities. If you dress out and participate when asked and do the Fitnessgram tests when the time comes, PE is a relatively easy course. Not online though. Depending on whether you are taking the summer course or spring/fall course affects when you have to turn things in. People who take this course in the summer have to turn something in every single day while those taking it during the school year have to turn things in every Wednesday. So, for the purpose of continuity, let's say that the student we used as an example is taking the online spring course for P.E. After having read the syllabus and schedule, they are required to fill out a fitness log each week which consists of the normal "which activity did you do" and "how long," but also consists of your resting heart rate, heart rate after exercising and the amount of calories burned. For those who don't have something that can monitor their heart rate, this can be a struggle even though they tell you how to calculate it. Other than just the fitness log, students have to participate in a discussion by writing a post and replying to one, and they have to complete multiple assignments online. In both the syllabus and actual real time, all of this takes three hours a day to complete. Not only this, but the school hours are 8-4 which for a high school student is not very doable. This student, gets to school at around 7:45 and is unable to get home until 4:30 so they will be unable to take part in the live online lessons which are extremely helpful when confused on something or if there is a project that makes more sense explained verbally. These are also the times that the instructor responds to emails. Because of these time hours, it's almost like online learning was made only for the summer or students who are homeschooled.
Online school, while a great advantage for students unable to take certain classes in school, is also not always the most convient use for students, especially when it comes to the hours the teacher is online and the extreme amount of hours that they have to put into the class, especially when this is coupled with all of the other work that they have from the actual school.
