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Virtual learning: Two years later

On March 13, 2020, Gov. Tom Wolf ordered schools to close for two weeks. Two years later, many kids are still feeling the impact.

MOOSIC, Pa. — It was two years ago this month that Gov. Tom Wolf made the announcement: All schools were to close for ten business days in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

As we all know, it lasted a lot longer than that, and ten days turned into a year for many students.

Even this year, some school districts moved to virtual learning during the omicron wave of COVID-19. All that time behind a screen has had a lasting impact on kids, some for the better, some for the worse.

T.J. McKenney from Honesdale was worried his first-grader Coltin was going to give up.

"When I work with him at home, he gets to the point where he wants to cry because he doesn't know how to do anything."

He says his son only had an hour of instruction a day when classes were virtual.

"He's very, very far behind, to the point where I think I'm probably going to try to hold him back and do first grade again," McKenney said.

Randi Yonke from Greenfield Township watched her daughter Madelyn struggle with online preschool.

"We lost her, the kid that she was. She lost her spunk, she lost her spirit. She was miserable."

That's why she enrolled her in a private school for her kindergarten school year – an expensive decision but one she knew she needed to make.

"If she stayed home and tried to do the virtual learning, there's no way she would've had that foundation to be able to go into first grade and be successful," Yonke said.

Cassandra Hayes from Dickson City says her now-eighth-grade daughter Kayleigh thrived in a virtual learning environment, so much so that she made the change permanent. Kayleigh is now enrolled in a cyber charter school.

"She was barely passing. Like, we were in fear of getting her held back, all of that stuff, and now she has an 86 average. That's when I have to turn around and say it's the school. It's the way they're doing it because there's no way somebody flips a switch within a month," Hayes said.

Hayes stressed that there are still plenty of opportunities for her daughter to interact with other kids socially. The cyber school holds events and organizes field trips.

Danielle Weiler from Clarks Summit had a similar experience with her sixth-grader, Aiden. He struggled in school prior to the pandemic, but when classes went online, she says it was like a lightbulb went on, and things just started clicking.

"I think it allowed him to concentrate and become very focused on what it was that they were doing, without all the additional distractions in school."

He's back in the classroom for sixth grade because Danielle believes it's important for his development. She says the success he experienced during his year of virtual schooling gave him the motivation and confidence he needed when he returned to in-person classes.

Whether virtual learning helped or hurt, Weiler said, at the very least, "I know that the kids understand they are a part of history."

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