Distance learning has thrown students at Alliance High School through a series of hoops, both good and bad. Alliance High School provides three classes to other schools through distance learning: Money-Wise, taught by Susan Dimmit, Careers, taught by Misty Gram, and Spanish, taught by Jorge Pla Redondo. Alliance also takes Spanish classes from a school near Kearney, called Plesenton High School. This class is taught by Ms. Jolean Drake. Ms. Drake has taught distance learning Spanish for ten years. She tries her best to help kids understand the language so they can get into most colleges that require two years of a foreign language. “That is one reason I take what I teach very seriously, and my classes are considered college prep classes,” Ms. Drake explained. This has caused many problems for Alliance students, and the administration have taken this into consideration.

When the new school year started in August of 2014, Alliance had everything figured out to have Ms. Drake from Plesenton High School teach three Spanish classes for AHS students. Ms. Drake would teach two Spanish II classes and one Spanish IV class. Then, Mr. Pla would teach the rest of the students who signed up for Spanish, but were not put in the distant learning classes. What they didn’t know was how big of a mess it was going to become. At first, the distant learning classes were without a supervisor. Then, the students couldn’t get connected to the teacher or had a different time schedule because of the heat schedule. That all took a few weeks to get organized and once they did, many kids started dropping the class like flies. Starting out with around at least 12 students in first period; it is now down to two girls. The maximum number of Alliance High students Ms. Drake has in a classroom is around five. For many reasons such as a senior, Lauren Block, who started Spanish IV but dropped it. Lauren said “Overall, I dropped Spanish IV because I needed more contact with my teacher to be able to succeed and learn.” Most of the reasons always lead back to the final grade students were getting in the class. GPA’s were falling and kids were not being able to participate in extra curricular activities because of this one class. Just like it should be, except the fact that it wasn’t always the student’s fault and it was more than just a few students. To hand in paperwork to Ms. Drake, it must be mailed. So when the work was late, a zero was put in for that student.

Besides the late work because of the mail, students were not prepared to take this class. The few years before distant learning for Spanish, Alliance students would have Mr. Pla for Spanish I, then Mrs. Anderson for Spanish II and Spanish III before returning to Mr. Pla’s classroom for Spanish IV. Most, if not all, of the students from Alliance taking Ms. Drake’s class have felt that they are not on the same level or even close to the same level as the kids that have had her for the past years. “I felt very unprepared for this class, ”says Kami Felker. Kami, a sophomore, has stuck through the stress that this year’s Spanish II class has brought. The students that have not dropped the class are in it, not only for the challenge, but mainly because most colleges require two years of Spanish.

When I talked to Mr. Oestman, the Vice Principal, he explained how it is unfortunate for the students that it happened this way. “I do not think there is one specific thing that can solve this problem,” he said. Things we know now to try and help are preparing our students better so they understand the whole distance learning process before putting them into the class. Also, distance learning has and always will have its pros and cons. Students will never get the chance to go into the classroom and get missing work or ask for help. At the same time, without these options students would never even get a chance to take these classes. Mr. Oestman cannot give any information for next year at this time. The problem certainly needs to be fixed, and for the sake of the students, need to be fixed before next year.