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GCS high school student creates petition to decrease screen time

For the second semester, the district is increasing high school instructional time from around three hours to four and a half hours.

GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — Guilford County High Schoolers were supposed to return in-person this Thursday, January 21. 

Instead,  they've been delayed for weeks and given more instructional time at home.

RELATED: Guilford County Schools delays reentry for middle and high school students

One student at Northwest Guilford High created a Change.org petition indicating that additional screen time is not the answer. 

"I was the one who started it on Friday afternoon and it's taken off since then, I was not expecting this," Sheldon Ulmer said. He's a sophomore. 

"I thought I was the only one feeling this way."

Nearly 2,500 signatures later, he's certainly not the only one. His classmates were some of the first to sign. 

"I had multiple people reaching out to me like 'what can you do about this, this is ridiculous, this is going to be too much,'" sophomore Chloe Cole stated.

"It's straining our eyes, it's like a lot of time sitting and staring and many aren't participating because it feels like an unwelcoming environment," senior Alli Stovall added.

"Personally, I think it can be a little overwhelming for students," junior Christian White said. "This is at least the third change we've been through."

For the second semester, the district is increasing high school instructional time from around three hours to four and a half.

"But it's spread out between 9:55 a.m. to 4:25 p.m.," Ulmer explained. "So it's 7 hours and 25 minutes of sitting in front of your laptop not getting any exercise and listening to a teacher talk."

GCS Chief Academic Officer Dr. Whitney Oakley said the three hour teaching window was created back in August with the assumption that in-person learning would return in a short time frame, but that didn't happen. Since then, there has been 'significant learning loss.'

"It might not be increased screen time necessarily, it's just that were doing every class every day," she explained. "If we are able to gradually reenter our high school students, this would be the schedule. If we didn't change it now, they would be experiencing yet another change when they come back face-to-face."

Dr. Oakley added -- the state sets the required instructional hours. 

RELATED: Here's how Guilford County Schools tracks and reports COVID-19 cases

"In the course of a school year we're required to deliver 1,025 hours of instructional time," she stated. "We were going to shift to five days a week of instruction when we were coming back to school January 21, that was going to happen regardless of whether we were pivoting face-to-face or staying remote."

But the students WFMY News 2's Jess Winters interviewed believe more remote screen time will raise more mental health concerns.

"What is the goal here, would you like to return to three hours and ten minutes of remote instruction?" Jess questioned.

"The goal is to get as much time taken off as we can," Ulmer answered. "I was reading through the comments of the petition and some are talking about suicidal thoughts, depression and anxiety and it breaks my heart to hear that and added screen time isn't helping."

Oakley said the district has resources for those in crises.

"We do have a crisis hotline that's posted on the website. We want any student experiencing a mental health crisis to use these resources, counselors are available and are continuing to reach out. We are certainly sensitive to the issues the pandemic has created and want to make sure students have everything they need."

The schedule change takes effect Thursday. 

"Our job is to provide free, appropriate, high-quality education so as we shift into the second half of the school year it's critcal in order to get the content they need that we move to this schedule."

For students who work, Dr. Oakley said remote classes will continue to be recorded and they can access them at a later time. 

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