Half of the week in-school, half of the week at home with a half day in between. Hybrid learning is the biggest change this semester. And some of these students are happy to be back in the building.

“I prefer going in-person, just because then you can have that social time with other students, you can have that one on one time with the teacher,” Sr. Jayden Shamp said. “You can have– you don’t have the high school experience you do now online than you would in-person.”

“I prefer to go to in-person, because I’m easily distracted and it’s just a lot better in my opinion to go there because you get a lot more work done,” Jr. Ryan Crotts said.

There are definitely difficulties teaching in the hybrid model.

“I think the challenge with this now is both person and online at the same time is that you’re stuck with whose gonna get more content as opposed to whose not,” mechanical engineering teacher Austin Andrews said.

“This is very difficult to do, lesson planning already takes a lot of time to do; to craft these things and I know basically all of us teachers are already working harder than we ever have before,” history teacher Micah Smith said.

Juggling between two different classes can be difficult not only for the teachers, but the students as well.

“I would say they focus more on people online, that’s just my classes at least,” Crotts said. “I don’t know they just don’t really walk around- you can ask questions they’ll come to you, but they’re more on the computer of course.”

Besides the education part of things, hybrid offers a bit of a unique social experience.

“You’re wearing masks, you’re socially distanced, there’s not a lot of people in the classes; not as much as I thought there would be,” Shamp said. “And you don’t really get to socialize that much, you’re still doing the same thing you would do at home at school, in a mask, on the desk.”

From the masks in class to the computer work at home, today’s hybrid could be a sign of the future.