The Impact On Students’ Education as The Los Angeles Unified School District Transitions to Distance Learning.

The Impact On Students’ Education as The Los Angeles Unified School District Transitions to Distance Learning.

Since March 16, many schools were forced to shut down, when alarm bells began to sound on the growing spread of the coronavirus. The school closures were put in place to support the country’s responses of coping with appropriate measures of curbing the spread of Covid-19 virus. School closures have seemed to have presented a logical solution to enforcing social distancing in the community. Conversely, prolonged closures have been deemed to have disproportionately negative impacts on most students. Unlike students from a wealthy family, learners from poor background have been experiencing greater challenges while accessing distance learning. However, this paper aims to discuss the impacts on students’ education towards the transition of distance learning in the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to the “15,000 L.A. high school students are AWOL online, 40,000 fail to check in daily amid coronavirus closures”, article.

Many students have fewer opportunities for learning while their homes, thus have affected their distance learning. According to the article, 15000 learners in Los Angeles High School have been absent on their online classes, while 40000 have not been in contact with their teachers since school enclosure (BLUME, 2020, n. p). This is because the majority of students come from low-income families; thus, they may lack computers and the internet, which may connect them to doing their online school. The digital system based on distance learning has participated in dividing the engagements of students while doing their classwork. This has caused many students not being involved in their schoolwork. The online system has further created difficulty for students to stay connected and in contact with their instructors. This has led to education imbalance among various students in Los Angeles High schools. Several students who were able to take online lessons would attain a strong relationship with their teachers than the ones who never involved in online sessions.

Moreover, some students do not feel inspired and motivated to do their schoolwork at homes virtually. Distance learning has been considered to have great potential, particularly to self-motivated, students with high parental support, and high-achieving learners. Conversely, some students might feel bored attending instance and online classes. This is because many teachers are sometimes involved in assigning busywork to students, which may not be termed as being productive work. In some cases, many students are often subjected to doing an assigned task, which does not require daily check-in. Thus, making some students feel like they are not getting standard education as it is needed.

Nonetheless, many students fail in participating in their education processes during distance learning. This is because several students who are not from well-up families usually face some challenges such as lack of prolonged childcare, house insecurities, lack of adequate food, and lack of adult connection. These problems have created uncertainties for the provision of distance education among the students living in poor conditions. In this case, some students have been forced to consider the school closure as their off time. Thus, they do not dedicate themselves in learning even when they are at their homes. This leads to lower academic performances among the vulnerable students within society.

Nevertheless, many students have not been able to attain maximum parental support while in distance learning. In this case, most students have limited infrastructure such as laptops, which would help them in doing their school work. Poor students are also more likely to have slow internet connection compared to students from wealthy families. Therefore, access to technology in most households may vary. This is because the accessibility to high bandwidth internet to smartphones is often related to the level of income earned.  Besides, other children are often involved in household chores such as taking care of their siblings, which in turn affects the participation of children while doing distance learning. Also, other students help in catering their family needs by finding jobs. However, some parents’ contacts become inaccessible when tried to be reached by instructors or school department. This is because the contacts of many parents from lower backgrounds lose their phones, change their numbers, thus making their cellphone numbers out to date.  Lack of parental cooperation in distance learning has negatively impacted education, especially to many students living in poverty.

Additionally, many students have been disconnected from the learning process. Since the school closure due to coronavirus crisis, it has been discovered that a third of Los Angeles high school students have not been daily contact with their teachers. However, most of these students “might have been amongst the most vulnerable students” (BLUME, 2020, n.p).  This involves students who are experiencing homelessness or those who are living in extreme poverty conditions. Such students usually struggle with school work attendance, especially in ordinary times.

In conclusion, the enclosure of schools has affected students. This is because many learners are not able to access distance education due to lack of digital platform. Poor students are often to be among the most affected in distance education. Eventually, education interventions will help in mitigating the impact of distance learning among students.

Work Cited

BLUME, H. and KOHLI, S., 2020. 15,000 L.A. High School Students Are AWOL Online, 40,000 Fail To Check In Daily Amid Coronavirus Closures. [online] Los Angeles Times. Available at: <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-30/coronavirus-los-angeles-schools-15000-high-school-students-absent> [Accessed 30 March 2020].