Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted classrooms, Shaker students and teachers say that academic and social habits are fundamentally transformed.
The pandemic forced an immediate transition to remote instruction. The last day of in-person learning occurred March 13, 2020. Following a three-week shutdown of schools for an “extended spring break,” online classes began after Governor Mike Dewine extended closures to May 1 and subsequently the rest of the academic year due to concerns over the rapid spread of coronavirus. Homes doubled as classrooms, and parents acted as co-teachers. Sophomore Emma Dean said that she spent much of that time drifting away from academic work. “I just hung out with my friends and played Roblox all day,” she said. “I had no motivation because I would just play Roblox in my closet.”
Evangeline Luna, a sophomore, said being at home interfered with school. “It definitely messed with my learning and how I understood things because I had to learn by myself, and that was kind of hard and it wasn’t as serious,” she said.
During virtual learning, math teacher Courtney Lindsay said that she still used most of her in-person teaching methods, including hand-writing notes. “I always have kids write in notebooks and kind of draw things themselves. So that part didn’t have to change because I wasn’t providing a handout anyway,” she said. Lindsay that she would occasionally make students turn on their screens and show her their notes. “Most people were pretty cooperative,” she said.
Psychology teacher Victoria Berndt said that she transitioned many lesson resources onto HyperDocs for easy accessibility. HyperDocs are interactive, digital lesson plans on Goo-
gle Docs that teachers can create to centralize learning materials. “We tried to transition it into these HyperDocs while also trying to really make things that were more person-to-person interactive, because we knew that the kids were going to miss that element,” Berndt said. “What we didn’t expect was there was no mandate to turn on cameras. So what we ended up with was cool ideas, but no participants.”
Freshman Mason Henoch said his early remote learning days were marked by interruptions and unpredictability. “I did online learning in fourth and fifth grade. The learning experience felt really random and inconsistent, from internet problems to my teachers constantly telling others to turn their camera on,” Henoch said.
Berndt said that during Zoom learning, few of her students interacted, and most kept their cameras off. “Out of all [my] classes, I think I knew the faces of two students,” she said.
Hybrid learning began Jan. 19, 2021 at the high school. Attending school in person was optional. Students whose families chose for them to return to in-person learning were assigned to one of two groups based upon last names. One group attended class onsite on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the other on Thursdays and Fridays. They logged in from home when it wasn’t their turn.
Students were met with plastic desk dividers, masks, air purifiers, hand sanitizer and social distancing in their classrooms. “That [hybrid learning] was difficult. I think if we had to do it again, we would design it differently. Having more students at home than at school created a weird dynamic where more often than not I would give more help to the students online than those actually in front of me,” AP Biology teacher John O’Verko said.
Berndt said that hybrid learning also altered classroom social dynamics. “I had to teach to a computer and also teach to kids in the classroom, so my time was split,” she said. “But there was also this really weird social breakdown. Kids didn’t know one another. So you had kids that would come in, but thenthey would stop coming in because they didn’t know anybody. And you couldn’t interact with anybody other than to shout from one end of the classroom to the other.”
Sophomore Zain Chowdhry experienced online learning in fourth grade and hybrid learning in fifth grade. “I didn’t pay attention in class, and the lack of social interactions caused me to be sad,” he said. “I lost some friendships after Covid was done because I stopped talking to lots of people.”
Lindsay said that it was difficult balancing virtual and in-person students. “You can’t really pay attention to the ones who are online because you’re not even sitting by your computer anymore at that point,” she said. “The people who were at home could see what I was writing and could hear me. But I couldn’t see them or hear them really, because they never spoke up. So it was very awkward.”
“I say all the time that there is not enough money in the world to make me do that again,” math teacher Abigail Goldstein said, referring to the difficulties of hybrid learning. “I wasn’t helping any student effectively.”
O’Verko said that he adopted Edpuzzle, online labs and Mastering Biology, a software used to access resources as well as assignments, during the pandemic and uses them to this day.
Goldstein said she implemented Google Classroom during the pandemic more than she had previously. Additionally, Goldstein and the math department discovered DeltaMath, an online tool that provides practice for mathematical concepts, a mainstay of Goldstein’s classes during the post-Covid years.
When in-person classes resumed, students struggled to adjust. “Remote people had the flexibility to do work when they wanted to, and that didn’t transfer well to a traditional school environment,” O’Verko said. He said that his students are missing more assignments overall since the Covid-19 pandemic than prior to it.
Goldstein said she noticed more missing assignments following Covid. “I would say it got worse, but now we’re on the upswing a little bit,” she said.
Henoch said his incentive fell sharply during remote learning because the academic environment felt less meaningful. “My motivation went down a lot because it felt really easy for people to cheat or skip class, so it felt like the work I was doing didn’t really matter,” Henoch said.
English Department Chairwoman Emily Shrestha said that the “no zeroes” policy that the district implemented briefly post-pandemic was detrimental to students. She said that it set an expectation that students didn’t have to engage in their work, but could still be successful — however, that success was not genuine.
“It just meant that they moved on to the next class without actually learning any of the foundational skills that we needed them to. So the ‘no zeros,’ the ‘45s,’ those sort of practices — I don’t think actually helped students, except for in GPA,” she said. “You still have to engage in the assignment. You still have to do something.”
Shrestha said that students were most passive after the pandemic. “Like, students are waiting to receive the knowledge that teachers are attempting to give them. We all thought we were Dora the Explorer on an adventure, and the children were just blinking at us, right?”
English teacher Nalin Needham also said that he notices passivity in students. “I think that for a variety of reasons now there is a percentage of students — and I don’t think this is unique to Shaker, I think it’s everywhere — that are just constantly waiting to be told what to do and not exploring for themselves. If you don’t give it to them, then they just kind of sit there and don’t do anything,” he said.
One junior said she had “zero motivation” to study for tests. “Last year I was way more motivated, and this year it actually matters, and I’m not,” she said. She said that some of her peers feel the stressed of academic pressure. “I think a lot of kids are overwhelmed with how much work there is,” she said.
Shrestha said that before the pandemic, school expectations typically prioritized academic assignments above all else. After returning to in-person learning, however, she said that mental health awareness has increased. “Everyone is just much more in tune to how kids could be really struggling with things and feeling overwhelmed,” she said.
Students’ attitudes toward school after Covid coincide with a national rise in absenteeism. According to the U.S. Department of Education, districts across the country report that students are finding it harder to attend school regularly, complicating efforts to rebuild academic habits.
In Columbus City Schools, research from The Ohio State University’s Crane Center found that students missed an average of 23 percent of school days during the 2022-23 year. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education reported that the Ohio rate of chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days, was 31 percent.
According to data provided by Dr. Christina Bauer, the Director of Student Data Systems and Accountability, Shaker Heights High School had a chronic absenteeism rate of 16.4 percent during the 2018-2019 school year, the last full school year before the pandemic. Chronic absenteeism decreased to 6.9 percent during the 2019-2020 school year, the beginning of the pandemic.
When the high school returned to full in-person learning during the 2021-2022 school year, chronic absenteeism skyrocketed to 43.3 percent of the student population. The following year it increased to 49.6 percent. Chronic absenteeism decreased during the 2023-2024 school year to 36.4 percent, but grew once again last school year to 39.4 percent.
The same study by the U.S. Department of Education showed a strong connection between attendance and a sense of belonging. Students who reported feeling connected to peers and adults at school attended more consistently and were more motivated to go to class and complete assignments. However, Luna said she often sees students walking in the hallways instead of going to class. “The days can be a lot, and they need breaks or aren’t motivated or want to be in class,” she said.
Lindsay said that post-Covid, many students don’t see the incentive of attending class and think that “they don’t actually have to be in school in order to be able to get everything out of it,” she said. “If you think about your assignments, a lot of it is stuff that you do on your Chromebook. Or you’re writing a paper, but you’re doing the research online. You’re going to internet resources. And with video tutorials available and stuff like that, people are relying less on the teacher.”
“I think people believe that it’s less important to be in school because they believe they have access to everything at home,” she said.
Henoch said he notices more students avoiding class. “Almost every time I go to the bathroom or get water, I see people skipping class,” he said. “I think people just didn’t get used to going to school in person again, so the mindset of not going to class felt normal.”
Berndt said that virtual learning during the pandemic contributed to the attendance decline. “If you’re not required to turn on a camera and you’re not really required to do much work, and you’re not required to talk, and you’re not used to an attendance policy — that’s a lot of behavior that has been inadvertently taught that you now have to go back and try to correct,” Berndt said.
Shrestha said that she has noticed a larger increase in tardiness than absenteeism. “It isn’t necessarily that I have more kids absent per day or per week. But definitely the sort of urgency to get to a place on time is, I think, is something that suffered over Covid,” she said.
Teachers and students also noticed changes in social norms after the pandemic. Needham said that during the initial reintroduction to in-person learning, social engagement was difficult. “I remember just being in rooms where it was painful. Kids would just sit there and stare at each other and not talk to each other,” he said.
Henoch said that even now, some norms feel less formal than they did before the pandemic. “I feel like now I see a lot more phones and people not dressed as appropriately — for example pajamas and blankets — than before Covid,” he said.
Berndt said that social skills had to be retaught after Covid. “People in general forgot societal norms, because they weren’t practicing them. If you don’t practice something, even a societal norm, you lose those skills,” she said. “So skills were not being developed, they were not being improved, they were not progressing.”
Some teachers said that, following the pandemic, they adapted their lessons in order to accommodate academic and social changes. Needham said that post Covid, he often needs to anticipate “the need for providing a lot more structure, a lot more scaffolding and understanding.” For example, he said, when assigning an essay, he provides more explicit directions and examples of what to write.
Berndt said that she also provides more structure and examples in her assignments. “When we’re annotating a source, I don’t assume that everybody knows how to annotate a source,” she said.
Berndt said that post Covid, she often aims to reduce students’ cognitive load. “I used to teach a lot of bonus stuff. And while it’s cool, if it’s adding to the overall cognitive load of a student, I have to step back and decide — even if I don’t want to cut it — what big message do I want them to have?”
“So I’ve taken some things back. Not necessarily that I’ve diminished the curriculum, because we’re still teaching what is required, but I do less of what I am personally interested in. I focus more on what kids are personally interested in and then I weave it into the lessons,” Berndt said.
O’Verko said that he had to adapt his teaching to accommodate changes during the pandemic. Goldstein said she has altered her approach to fill gaps. “Skills for math weren’t honed,” she said.
However, Shrestha said that with distance from the pandemic, social and academic skills are improving. She said that juniors and seniors who missed their middle school years, were more affected academically than freshmen who missed elementary school.
Needham also said that social skills are improving in recent years, particularly with younger students. “It made an impact, but there’s been enough runway for kids to catch up,” he said of freshmen, who first transitioned to virtual learning in second grade.
Shrestha also said that because of Covid, there is a better culture surrounding mental health. “It is a nicer environment to live in when you start with, ‘Hey, how are you doing today?’ And allow kids to say, ‘Well, actually not that great.’ To have that awareness, if the kids are willing to share and then the grownups are willing to ask,” she said.
Shrestha said that it’s important to adjust to new expectations as society — and students— change. “Kids change,” Shrestha said. “The teachers were fussing about the kids in the ’90s because they weren’t the kids in the ’80s and the ’70s.”
Said Shrestha, “Are we getting back to higher expectations for students in classes than we did in 2021, 2022? Absolutely. But are we back to what they were in 2017? No.”
A version of this article appears in print on pages 6, 7, 8 and 9 of Volume 96, Issue 3, published Dec. 15, 2025.
