Students at PRHS are taking summer courses to get back on track or advance in a class.

In Paso Robles, most bearcats find themselves soaking in the sun and relaxing during the summer. However, others take their personal time to catch up on school credits, or take classes for extra room in their schedule for the next year. This years’ summer school for the Paso Robles High School had over 400 students participating.

“What I enjoyed about summer school was that I could choose how I used my time to finish my work.” said Mandy Lee, a Junior at PRHS. Others, such as Baylee Burrows, agreed that it had given them an opportunity to get ahead in their courses.

“It only really helped me get my history out of the way so I have another elective, but I like teacher interactions better than online courses.” Burrows, a Junior, expressed. The year before, most students who are attending the online courses this year had taken classes with teacher and student interactions.

“It was difficult to transition because it went by too fast. The course we did last year was easier and was easy to understand what I was learning unlike the online courses. The whole point was just getting it done before a certain deadline so there very little knowledge was being learned.” Adeline Gomez commented. The transition to online courses was a little more difficult to some students because of the intensity of the courses.  “Yes and no, no in the sense of grades being pretty straight forward, and yes because it’s complicated adjusting to having to watch videos and try and retain an entire chapter from a screen with no live, or physical contact with a teacher. Lessons aren’t as interesting, making it hard to really concentrate and get all of it done.” Maya Cortez added.

A negative aspect of summer school for some students was having to balance their personal vacations and social life with the intense school work.  Burrows felt that “it got in the way of a lot of things.” She also stated, “I had to cancel a lot of plans so I could attend the class and do the online portion at home.” Yet, a student in the same class expressed, “I didn’t have any issues with getting in the way of summer other than my parents both working full time and one having to take time to drop me off.”

Overall, the majority of students said that summer school had helped them get to where they wanted to be.“I’d say for sure it’s worth it since you finish a whole year in three weeks at the most and not have to deal with it after.” said Viviana Hernandez, a junior at PRHS. “It is an opportunity for students to get ahead or make up credit so they can stay on track for graduation.” Mr. Overton expressed. Summer school was an opportunity many bearcats took to accomplish their scholarly goals!