The Lasting Effects of COVID-19 on Hamber Students

Katja Radovic-Jonsson

The past two years at Hamber have been unprecedented for students and staff. With courses having been taught through two completely different systems due to COVID-19, Hamberites have needed to adapt to a rapidly changing school environment.

Now, as Hamber starts to return to normal, students and teachers have varying opinions on how COVID-19 has affected students’ motivation and stress levels.

The first of Hamber’s measures against COVID-19 was the quarter system, which was introduced in the 2020-2021 school year.

This system would distribute students’ classes into four 10-week quarters, with students usually taking two courses per quarter. At the beginning of a quarter, one of the two classes would be taught completely online, typically through Microsoft Teams, while the other class would have in-person lessons either in the morning cohort (8:40 a.m. to 10:25 a.m.) or the after noon cohort (1:18 p.m. to 3:03 p.m.). This system split each course into two separate cohorts in order to promote social distancing.

While some students found these changes beneficial, other students found them harmful.

“I felt like way less effort was needed for academic success in the quarter system,” said Emily Vuong (11).

Marcus Tsang (12) found his classes stressful during the quarter system because of the lack of a social outlet.

“Academic pressure is tough, and I had no one to talk to,” he said.

Along with students, teachers had their opinions on the quarter system.

“I found that students in the quarter system performed really well,” shared Ms. R. Cooper (Social Studies). Cooper believes that the focus on only two subjects and the down time that the quarter system allotted led students to go far in their work.

The second of Hamber’s measures against COVID-19 was the semester system, which was implemented in the 2021-2022 school year. It split students’ full year timetables into two semesters, with a maximum of four courses per semester. Similar to the quarter system, students and teachers had different opinions on certain changes made throughout the semester system.

Vuong observed that, “there was a lot of prerequisite information needed for the semester system courses not taught in the quarter system”, which made her semester system courses more challenging.

Tsang, however, remarked that he achieved higher marks in his semester system courses compared to the quarter system.

“It was [a] positive [impact], be cause I had more time to study and I could actually ask people [for help],” he said.

Ms. N. Buonassisi (French) found that many students complained about homework being due the day after it was assigned since the semester system began. Both Buonassisi and Cooper also found the semester system to be more packed, with little preparation time available for teachers in between school days.

This school year, Hamber has continued with the semester system. Many at Hamber see the lingering effects of the pandemic on students.

“In terms of students’ ability and how they do work, everyone’s been adjusting well, going back to normal,” stated Cooper.

Buonassisi also believes that “the majority of students are still extremely motivated and doing very well academically.”

Angela Chen (11) even finds that her work ethic is better now because of learning through COVID. Moreover, Tsang and Vuong state that their aca demic motivation is just as strong as it was before COVID took place.

However, Hamber students’ academic performance is not a full representation of how they are feeling.

“I would say there’s more worry and anxiety in general, even for the kids that are succeeding academically,” says Buonassisi. She thinks that younger students lack academic motivation, as their introduction to high school was drastically different than what it should have been.