Oh BOY, do I have a LOT to say about this... As a student who is in my school's gifted program and was signed up for several CHS classes this year AND wants to go to college to major in chemistry, I kind of find school and good grades REALLY fucking important. I basically define who I am by my grades, which I'm aware is a toxic mindset that's destined to cause way too much stress for me, but I'm so fucking lazy that otherwise I'm not motivated to do shit. Just because I'm supposed to be book smart doesn't mean I know what the fuck a healthy lifestyle is.

Well... I'll start from the beginning.

In March of 2020, I got sick for like a week. I was already skipping lots of classes because at the time I was going through an intense depressive episode, so getting sick really pissed me off and discouraged me further from trying to escape the hole I'd dug for myself. I was failing English because I'd skipped that many classes, and in my trig class I barely had a C- because I pretty much only attended that class like once a week due to skipping so much.

I was miserable and the thought of trying to learn or focus on school was literally repulsive to me. I dreaded being in the building and I often fantasized about just throwing myself down the stairs or jumping from the school's second floor balcony. I'd often bang my head on the walls and stab myself with pencils and pens, even if I didn't draw blood. Hell, at one point I was given an emergency expulsion {which I've gone into more detail about in a separate post on this book}.

So... once I was sick that just discouraged me even more. But then, while I was sick, I heard on the news that tons of schools were shutting down due to COVID. I asked one of my friends that goes to the same school as me over Wattpad DMs if our school was closed due to COVID, and she told me it was. My school soon issued an email to all students informing them that learning would take place remotely through an application called Zoom, which I'd never even heard of until then. The email also said that teachers would post assignments in Google Classroom and to check that frequently.

I attempted to attend Zoom calls and complete my work in Google Classroom, but my Wi-Fi connection was too slow. As I've stated before in previous posts I live in extreme poverty- we live off of government welfare because my dad is physically incapable of work due to disability, and they are the most stingy fucking people ever. I'm unable to get a job as well because we cannot afford the gas money in transportation due to the fact we live far out in a rural area.

Due to our financial circumstances, the only form of internet we can afford based on the literally two plans available in our area is by using a tablet with service through U.S. Cellular and then using said tablet as a hot spot. My dad pays about $10 a month for an unlimited data plan with a 2 GB data slowdown, but even so the 'fast' Wi-Fi is not fast enough for things like live streaming {which is required for services such as Zoom}. It's still significantly faster, but it still wouldn't be fast ENOUGH. I don't know the exact connection speed of the faster internet before the slowdown {I would estimate maybe 500 KBPS}, but I do know that once the slowdown is reached that it slows down to about 10 KBPS.

I've had to run numerous downloads for games that take place over the span of days, and most of the games I download are through Steam, which tracks your Wi-Fi speed as well as the highest spike in your speed. Most downloads spike to about 25 KBPS for a few seconds, but there was ONE time I saw it spike to about 40 KBPS. Consistently, the Wi-Fi fluctuates between about 5 and 15 KBPS, so an average of around 10 KBPS. In a single day, I can usually download about 800 MB of data, assuming I do not pause the download at any time. Also, for reference, dial-up Wi-Fi is about 100 KBPS and lots of people complained that was slow. Try my internet.

Because of my extremely slow internet that caused me to have to wait literal hours for Google Classroom to open and outright refused to connect me to Zoom for more than a few seconds, the school said they would give me a Wi-Fi hot spot provided by them and would be capable of fast internet speeds. Perfect solution, right?

WRONG!!!

You know how I said only two plans are available? Well, the only other option is a TV and Wi-Fi bundle through Dish, which costs hundreds a month {we used to have that plan and it provides basically the same Wi-Fi speeds as our current plan with U.S. Cellular too}.

So NATURALLY, the school decided to give me a hot spot through god damn T Mobile despite the fact my dad had explained to several people multiple times that pretty much the only people with any real Wi-Fi coverage out here is U.S. Cellular. The hot spot was able to pick up a roaming signal from the tower at full strength, but because it was a roaming signal it refused to actually allow use of the hot spot. My sister and I walked around our property and even climbed the giant hill to see if we could get an actual signal from a T Mobile tower, but we had no luck.

The school claimed that two other people in our area had been provided hot spots through T Mobile and reported that it worked, so my dad and I got in the car and we drove around a radius of like 3-5 miles. Just a roaming signal the entire time, still. I even brought my phone AND school provided Chromebook in the car with me and was constantly refreshing my school's webpage on both devices. No success.

As an "alternative," the school had my dad and I drive to town every week {by the way, that gas money added up and we were not reimbursed for it} so my teachers could give printed assignments to me in person. Most of the time, however, my teachers would ONLY give me the assignments or they'd provide some kind of printed out Google Slides presentation that was meant to be talked through and thus didn't contain all the important information, just a few bullet points to keep the speaker on track. They told me to look at the textbook if I had more questions and refused to give me any other sort of way to contact them for help {except a few who offered their fucking school emails}.

My favorites were the teachers who tried to get me to view materials posted on Google Classroom or talk to them during their "Zoom office hours" {basically a time the teacher designates outside of class for students to pop in and ask questions}. Like... are you actually retarded? Do you not even know WHY I'm getting assignments delivered to me in person?

I ended up not completing most of the work because I wasn't given proper or clear enough instruction on how to complete the work, and none of my teachers were very willing to do much in the way of helping me. So, I wasn't very willing to do much for their classes. I ended up failing most of my classes at the end of my sophomore year because of this.

Now, fast forward to September 2020 when my junior year of high school was starting. The school remained completely remote in learning, and they made extremely little effort to support me whatsoever. Actually, I was the one who had to reach out to every single one of my teachers via email {making me extremely uncomfortable and nervous due to my social problems, but that's another story} and explain my situation to them. None of them seemed to actually care, but I was still met with MUCH better responses than I was last year. This time it actually seemed like they were willing to work with me and help me out more.

At first, I figured I could maybe try to do the asynchronous learning in Google Classroom. I'd get on my school provided Chromebook around 9-10 AM and I'd sit at my desk doing whatever assignments were assigned that day. Usually about 3 or 4 things would get assigned to me each day, and I'd work without even taking breaks for food until I finished. Guess what time I got done every day? Around 11 PM. I was working from about 9-10 AM every morning trying to complete my school work. The actual assignments themselves were usually easy, it was loading the materials and actually accessing the assignments that were so difficult for me. After about a week of that extremely draining lifestyle, I stopped. There was no way I could realistically do that for an entire school semester! I would most DEFINITELY trigger a depressive episode with that kind of environment, and my mental wellbeing was more important to me than like 13 hours a day at a computer waiting for shit to load only to spend 20 minutes actually doing the assignment.

I'm not sure if it was the school or an outside agency, but again there was an attempt to provide me with a Wi-Fi hot spot. Guess what? They made the SAME mistake of getting a bullshit T Mobile hot spot!! I assembled it anyways hoping it would work, but lo and behold there was no signal. My dad and I drove around once more, and once more we were met with the same unsuccessful results at trying to get a signal. I got so pissed at how stupid everyone is that I threw the hot spot... I hope I didn't damage it. Well, whoever gave us the hot spot took it back without any damage complaints to us soo... I guess throwing it against the couch doesn't really damage it.

After that, my teachers basically stopped attempting to make contact with me or help me out in any way. Hell, my forensics teacher started imposing impossible deadlines on me that even if I worked 24/7 without food, sleep, or anything like that for, I'd never complete in time because my Wi-Fi was too slow. My other teachers basically just conveniently forgot I existed and went on with their merry fucking lives not caring that my future was severely at risk. There are several colleges that have stated for the 2020-2021 school year they will not accept pass/fail grades on transcripts and they will not take students with poor grades during this school year. So basically, I can kiss the idea of becoming a chemist good fucking bye cuz it ain't coming back, all because I didn't have fast enough Wi-Fi.

But... there's STILL more. Around October, the school announced that they would be allowing kids without Wi-Fi access or who otherwise had other issues with remote learning into the building during the day so they could use the school building's Wi-Fi to attend Zoom and complete assignments. Sounds great, right?

WRONG!!!

How the hell am I supposed to reach a building 20 miles from where I am? I'm not exaggerating, my school is roughly 20 miles from my house. I live THAT far out. Just going into town once a week is seriously difficult because that's a lot of gas money, but expecting me to go every single day is outright impossible. Even if the school provided gas money to me though, my dad would have to drive because I don't have a license {why I don't is also related to me being poor, but that's another story}. Not only would he not want to wake up that early every morning, but remember how I said he's disabled? His spine is so screwed up that doctors don't even know how he can still walk. Sitting in positions like those required when you drive put a lot of strain on his back, and over time that could cause some serious nerve damage to him and worsen his condition. So no, he's not going to be driving me to and from school every single day. Of course, nobody cared enough to offer me a ride, so I was still stuck with no method to complete my schooling.

In November, the school finally decided to run buses! Except... I could only come to school on Tuesday and Friday because they chose who could ride Monday/Thursday and who could ride Tuesday/Friday by last name. Thing is, Zoom classes ran on that same schedule with the first 3 classes on Monday/Thursday and the last 3 classes on Tuesday/Friday, so I could only attend my last 3 classes of the day. Plus, the semester was already like halfway through, so the idea that I could catch up on my work was ridiculous. After Zoom classes you had about an hour and 45 minutes {including your 30 minute lunch break} to complete work before the buses would show up to pick up students and bring them home. When you have half of a semester to make up, that's not enough time! Nowhere close!!

After Thanksgiving break the school decided to let students on the bus ride every single day {except Wednesday because there's no Zoom classes on Wednesday} of the school week. I was happy to finally be able to attend all of my classes, but even with that extra connection and two more "working periods" in my week I still wasn't able to catch up in even one class that I hyperfocused on. It was specifically my American studies class that I worked really hard in despite absolutely hating the subject matter. I would've chosen my CHS physics class out of interest for the topic, but the math was too complicated and the work I'd have to do to make up the class was way too much so I gave up and chose another class with much less of a workload.

Christmas break rolled around, and then it was January 2021. The end of the semester was coming up and even with all my efforts, I was failing every single one of my classes due to the fact I'd hadn't been able to attend the first half of the semester because I had no reliable Wi-Fi. Even the class I hyperfocused on still showed a painful F in the gradebook and wasn't very close to even a D. I'd dumped all my effort into that class and with finals so close I still wasn't even close to at least PASSING?!

At that point, I basically gave up completely. I stopped trying to make up any past work and just focused on all current work, but only for the classes I had time for and cared about. Even only focusing on current assignments, the time I had at school didn't give me time to complete everything. At this point I knew I was gonna fail everything, but I wanted to at least do SOMETHING just to show my teachers that I wasn't failing because of my extreme laziness, I was failing because of the school's failure to properly provide me with an education I could access.

When finals rolled around just the past week from the day I'm writing this, my fate was already sealed. Even if I got 100% on all my finals, I wouldn't pass a single class. Since there was no point after that, I ended up skipping all my finals. There was literally no point for me to attend because either way I'd still fail. I didn't even have a CHANCE to pass.

Today is currently Monday, January 25, 2021. Today I was supposed to go to school for my very first day of second semester and start fresh, but the bus decided it didn't want to even show up. So... I'm unable to go to school today and start my second semester properly.

Ugh...

Well, at least I know I'm not alone in failing. Across the US several states have reported an increase in failing grades. Some states only saw an increase of about 2 percent while others saw an increase up to 25 percent or more in F's! When the causes were investigated, it turned out most of the causes weren't due to the student being lazy or incompetent in learning- it was because COVID was giving them some sort of stress that rendered school irrelevant to them {such as a loved one dying from COVID} or because they couldn't even attend remote learning due to not having a computer and/or Wi-Fi.

In Washington state, the only thing I found that schools are legally required to do is excuse your absence if you can't attend school due to not having access to remote classes or because you're having COVID related issues. That's all we get? An excused fucking absence? Great, that'll definitely make sure I can graduate high school and go to college!

There have been some shitty relief programs in my state for kids who can't access remote learning, such as Amazon providing computers to kids specifically in Seattle or our stupid governor giving out funds for people to get better Wi-Fi. I call them shitty because clearly they haven't helped enough people. It's definitely a start and a step in the right direction, but I would love to not only hear WAY more about this but also see it impact a hell of a lot more people. Even if they didn't get to help me, I'd want to hear about relief programs helping people I know personally, just to see for myself that they're doing SOMETHING. Of course, the only reason I even know these exist is because I did some extensive research on Google before I wrote this post.

My dad is FURIOUS with the school for its stupidity and the fact it's tried very little to help me in my situation and is still counting first semester against me without allowing me any way to properly make it up when I never had a fair chance in the first place, and he's told me multiple times he might take this to court. If he chooses to do that, then who knows, maybe this post will come in handy somehow. Obviously I'd have a lot more to do than just writing a Wattpad book chapter to defend my case, but it might give me a little leverage to act as some form of a journal. I dunno. If anyone has any relevant legal advice or knowledge applicable to the US or even specifically Washington state, I'd like to know in case my dad does end up going to court.