Staff Editorial: Homeroom needs adjustment in virtual school
December 17, 2020
Homeroom, in its current format, is not working.
In this virtual environment, building connections is more important than ever. However, Homeroom, the class meant to do just that, has proven ineffective in providing connection and communication. This is due, in part, to the virtual format of the class.
Homeroom has almost doubled in length, going from 15 minutes to 25 minutes long, as well as now being on Monday and Thursday instead of Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
According to Principal Tina Ziegler, Homeroom was originally established under the idea that students who were better connected to each other, their teachers, and the school itself would perform better in school.
“Westview created Homeroom with the intention of having another adult and group of students to connect with for all four years of high school,” Ziegler said. “It is a non-academic time, for a highly academic school.”
This year, in the virtual learning environment, Ziegler said that Homeroom was intended as a place to disseminate information in the form of the Westview Newscast and ASB announcements, while also providing a place for students to connect with their peers and a teacher. Homeroom was also intended to be a place for mental health and equality and inclusion lessons.
“After the first couple of weeks, we received mixed feedback,” Ziegler said. “Adding another lesson was difficult; establishing relationships was a challenge for some.”
As of now, it is up to the teacher to determine how to best run their Homeroom. This has created disparities—extreme ones—in Homeroom classes. For some students, Homeroom is merely an attendance check-in, turning into an extension of their lunch break. Other classes participate in virtual games, such as Kahoot, or watch and discuss the Newscast together.
And this is just for the students who have chosen to still attend Homeroom. Even when school was in-person, students skipped Homeroom in favor of hanging out with their friends or grabbing a snack from the cafeteria. Now, in a virtual setting, it is easier than ever to simply not attend the class.
Additionally, much of the information disseminated during Homeroom can be found in other sources, such as on the Westview website or ASB Instagram. If students know that they can simply access announcements from other sources, they choose to not attend Homeroom, saving themselves from participating in another Zoom call. Yet despite this, if students choose not to attend Homeroom, but do not take the extra steps to look at the announcements on their own time, they remain uninformed.
If students do not attend Homeroom, then that automatically eliminates the ability to create connections with their peers or teachers outside of regular scheduled class time. Students, of course, still build connections with their classmates and teachers, but the difference is that homeroom provides that opportunity in a non-academic setting.
As the school looks towards reopening under the concurrent model in the coming months, a potential solution to the current problem with Homeroom could be combining the class with second period.
This change would ensure higher attendance rates, which would increase the communication and connection key to Homeroom. Even further, if this time were added to second-period classes students would have a greater need to attend homeroom as it would be a direct extension of their class.
While Homeroom was designed to allow students to build a connection with a group of peers and teacher for four years, that same growth is simply not possible in the virtual environment. Combining Homeroom with second period would not have to be a permanent change, but rather an adjustment better suited to online learning.
With all of the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, having a place to receive information about everything from spirit weeks to reopening updates is crucial. The student body deserves to be informed about the inner workings of campus, and Homeroom is meant to be the place to disseminate that information. There needs to be a change in order to ensure that happens.
As for creating deeper personal connections, setting aside specific time for this to occur, in a way that students will actually want to attend, is also important. Having Homeroom combined with second period would guarantee that students have time to simply chat with their peers and teachers, leading to the growth and bonding that Homeroom is meant to foster.
As Westview administration continues building the new schedule, looking at and revising Homeroom should also be considered.
V0x • Dec 17, 2020 at 11:38 am
Before I begin, I’d just like to preface this by saying that all of these opinions of mine are based off of my own experiences with homeroom, and perhaps a little bit from online school in general. My homeroom is rather hands-off, and as mentioned in the article, it’s one of those homerooms that are virtually one-minute-long check-ins and check-outs. I also attempt to somewhat speak for students in general, which is again based on my own experiences with how homeroom worked back when it was still in the classroom(since there isn’t much going on in my homerooms nowadays). But yeah, take my words with a grain of salt.
Okay, so I suppose I have a few gripes with the whole concept, or purpose, if you will, of homeroom in the first place. Frankly put, I don’t think sticking a bunch of people into a single breakout room is ever going to truly result in any bonding or communication without a conscious effort from students themselves, which is just an unfortunate consequence of the relatively short amount of time homeroom lasts, as well as human nature, as most people tend to prefer not interacting with people that they don’t know when given the chance. This was true even when people had to physically go to homeroom, and it’s even more true now. As yall have said, people can just keep their cameras off and not engage, or simply not attend at all. Although fusing homeroom and second period would solve the second problem, I believe that the online format we have for learning at the moment is pretty much an insurmountable barrier, as it just makes it so much easier for people to take the easy way out, meaning a refusal or dodge of any form of communication or engagement until they personally feel like it. Thus, I’m not convinced that simply merging homeroom and second period is going to result in many meaningful increases in communication, if at all(If given the opportunity to not interact, people won’t. I’m sure you’ve had those types of breakout rooms before, after all.). As for the dissemination of information in the form of lessons or announcements, I just don’t believe that the ability to access the information from other sources necessarily correlates with the number of people who don’t want to attend homeroom. My belief is just that people who don’t attend homeroom, at least for the vast majority, simply do not really care about the information disseminated during homeroom. After all, there are other sources for the same information, but in homeroom, this information is all condensed in the same place, making it probably much easier for any person to just attend homeroom and not really have to worry about looking at other sources for information. I doubt that many people at all are going to attempt to stay informed, while at the same time ditching the exact period in which they can inform themselves in the shortest amount of time. So let’s play along and say that I’m right, that the vast majority of people who ditch homeroom are the ones who are uninformed and don’t really care to be informed about the inner workings of campus(Heck, a lot of the kids who attended homeroom when it was in a physical setting still didn’t care, focusing instead on just taking a break or doing other schoolwork, myself included.). Essentially forcing homeroom upon these people probably isn’t going to be conducive to greater understanding of what’s going on around school, and if anything it could just be seen as intruding on the free time these people got used to having after having homeroom the way it’s been. So if all this is true, I guess I’m painting a rather bleak picture of what’s going on. My overall point is just that increasing the incentive to attend homeroom likely isn’t going to make people interact more with each other and their teachers, if they themselves have no desire to do so. The same is true with the dissemination of information. People who don’t really care about the announcements usually made during homeroom still aren’t going to care regardless of how homeroom is held, whether as an extension of second period or a separate period as it is now. If I had any say in the matter, I’d just make a check-in to homeroom mandatory, have the teacher give a quick summary of all the announcements(or at least provide the links to where the information is located), keep the room open, and let the people who don’t care to stay leave. In this way, people who want to stay informed and interact can do so if they choose, and the people who don’t can be free to do what they want, instead of being forced to stay in an activity they truly could not care less about. Obviously, you still want to make the people who don’t care, care. But frankly, I just don’t think this online format is going to make an effective solution possible at the moment, which is why I honestly think leaving homeroom as it is probably isn’t going to be much different than most possible solutions that the school may implement. I could be completely wrong though, and maybe we’ll suddenly see a massive increase in interaction and dissemination of information. I’m curious as to how this will pan out though(if it’s implemented), and if it doesn’t go well, this comment will be my “told you so”. We’ll see how it goes.