A Teacher’s Perspective: What Happens To Students When The Schools Close Down?
A lot of schools couldn’t recover from the pandemic’s damage. But what happens to the students when these schools close down?
Every school has a quota of students that need to be enrolled in order to keep the school afloat. From paying the employees to buying the materials and books, a lot of these things need funds — which was rare to come by during the pandemic. Although homeschools grew, traditional schools like Colegio de San Lorenzo crumbled. So what happens to the students of the schools that close?
It’s a mad scramble for transfer documents.
Parents will be in an uproar for sure. But the bottleneck comes in when requests, demands, and some threats for the transfer documents begin to flood emails. Although it’s supposed to be the administration who handles this, teachers are forced to take the work upon themselves due to the sudden influx and lack of manpower even though they don’t know what exactly the parents are talking about.
Teachers take the brunt of the blame when the schools close down.
Parents who unfortunately cannot connect to the administration directly sometimes unleash their frustration on the teachers. At times, the teachers end up becoming the de-facto “principal” or “president” of the school because “no one else wants to do it”. It’s frustrating but many teachers just swallow it because they love their students.
Students may be in for a culture shock.
If the school that the students have been doing so well in suddenly closes, they’ll be in for a culture shock when they go to another school. Not all schools are digitally adept and that can badly affect their grades and performance. Many of these teachers are just as burned out as those who lost their jobs because of the other schools closing.
Some go the “unschooling” route.
The unschooling route is when there’s no specific curriculum and allows the student to venture and learn with as much freedom as the parent may allow. Some parents in the Philippines opted for this method after seeing how the system “failed” their kids or how no schools fit their standards.
They will be forced to catch up faster than they’re capable.
When schools close down, some students end up enrolling in the middle of the year and the struggle is quite obvious. The lack of camaraderie among students and the struggle to make new friends can affect the kids’ grades. Even more so when the topics come to light. Schools have different sequences in teaching the topics.
Recommendation letters galore!
A lot of schools nowadays demand new enrollees to get recommendation letters from their old schools. But sometimes, the only contact with that teacher was the email provided by the school’s domain. Because of this, some students end up losing out on better schools because of the lack of that one requirement.
The guilt is real for many teachers, seeing their students get displaced and realizing their powerlessness. It’s why a lot of teachers instead resorted to tutoring. Some even opted to join organizations such as Teach for the Philippines to help reach students who were forcibly displaced.
More about schools and education:
The No-Fuss Guide For Your Kids’ First Day Of School
Buying a Laptop for School or Work? Here’s How To Choose One!
Celebrity Kids and Their Reactions On Their First Days at School
