Lots of students have had lots of struggles when it comes to being extremely independent, completing and turning in assignments. While they’re used to being mainly on their own when it comes to getting school work completed, NTI put it in a different perspective. It’s harder for them to get access to teachers, and it’s significantly more difficult to take in all the new and necessary information. Students have definitely gone through some extra struggles when it comes to submitting assignments and making sure they’re actually taking in the lesson and learning.

Unfortunately, there’s been a dramatic increase in students who are failing one or more classes. It’s a common trend among students of all ages, from elementary to high school. Students who usually finish school with A’s and B’s have watched their grades drop to C’s and D’s, even F’s. It’s much harder to stay on top of their work and keep their grades up for multiple reasons.

Kids have been given a huge workload over the course of the year. The amount of work can be very overwhelming, and that alone is enough to get behind and bring down grades. On top of that, if kids aren’t actually taking in any of the information, all the work they’re required to do becomes busy work that can be very confusing and hard. Missing work stacks up very quickly, and if students don’t catch up as soon as possible, it results in grades dropping lightning fast.

It’s also much harder to set up times to get help from teachers. Usually, kids have to wait until certain days of the week in order to schedule a time, and in the time students wait for that day, more work piles up. Thankfully, lots of teachers have gone out of their way to make it as easy as possible to contact them and get assistance from them. Even with all the effort, catching up and keeping grades up during NTI was a difficult task.

In his most recent post in ‘Let Them Learn in Fayette County,’ a FaceBook group full of parents wanting schools to be in session again, Matthew Vied shared a post on this exact topic with data given to him directly from the district. The data claimed that over the course of the 2019-2020 school year, 3,780 students failed one class or more. As of right now in the 2020-2021 school year, 7,006 students are failing one class or more.

“As you can see in this data from the District, the number of UNIQUE students with a failing grade nearly doubled year over year. An 85% increase!” Vied continued after sharing his new data. “Over 3000 more students failed a class this year compared to last. Three thousand!! The Herald Leader published an important article on failing grades a few weeks ago but it was unclear then the sheer number of students that were impacted. Matter of fact, it was presented as if one student, for example, could alone count for 8 failing grades, to seemingly soften the blow of what was a TRIPLING of the number of failed courses in the first semester.”

This shows that the difficulties of NTI have a very harmful effect on students and their grades. This frustrating way of learning has taken its toll, and students are failing much more now than ever before. Even with added assistance, both digital and in-person, it will take a lot of work and effort for students who are failing classes to climb out of the hole.

Thankfully, students are finally getting back into In-Person instruction. With in person help from teachers and more thorough lectures that go into more clear detail, ensure actual learning, students should be able to start catching up and getting their grades up. It’s much easier to pass classes if you’re actually in them and learning. Now that everyone is starting to go back, the average grade of students should increase dramatically.