The start of the school year hasn’t been easy for everyone. Some AP Language and Composition students walked into school on the first day only to find that their teacher wouldn’t be there for weeks to come.

A veteran teacher from Virginia was originally hired to take on this position, but the paperwork transfer between states got held up, causing the class and two sophomore classes to be supervised by a substitute, while current English teachers assigned and graded the work.. 

The surprised and concerned students questioned how this would impact their ability to perform on the spring AP exam. 

“I was kind of nervous because I know AP classes are important, so I was just wondering when the teacher would show up,” junior Sophie Mooneyhan said. 

Other students within this class share the same worries.

“I’m mostly just worried it’s gonna get to the AP exam and nobody will be prepared,” junior Grace Hare said. 

Due to the lack of a teacher, students express that the material has not been properly taught to students. Students struggle to learn the material, and they find themselves having to learn many lessons on their own without help.

“It was really horrible because she assigned work, and we had no one to ask or consult about it, and honestly everyone in the class is pretty pressed about it,” junior Tristan Granados said. “We don’t have grades and we don’t have help. It’s kind of rough.”

“I’ve had to teach myself a lot of the material, which I’m not used to doing,” junior Olivia Morgan said.

Other AP Language teachers on staff try to update the materials regularly, but since they are teaching their own classes, it is hard to complete work without being able to ask questions.

Hare had hoped for a different experience when she selected AP Language as her English course. 

“I was expecting us to get straight into work, but instead we’ve just been doing busy work,” Hare said.

For Granados, the experience is reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic. 

“We have to be more responsible like we were in online school. We have to be our own mentors, and we need to have a lot of self discipline,” Granados said.