CINCINNATI — About a year into the pandemic, some students are tired of virtual learning and transferring schools to get back into the classroom.
Vikas Kothari and Xavier Wiles are high school freshmen, and both said the virtual learning models their previous schools used weren't cutting it.
"It was extremely difficult for me," Kothari said. "It was very difficult to pay attention in class, like, and sometimes hard to hear what the teacher is saying."
Wiles said he felt like he wasn't learning enough. "It wasn't much learning at all, really," he said.
After they felt like they weren't getting much from virtual learning, both Wiles and Kothari talked to their parents and both transferred to St. Xavier High School.
Wiles and Kothari aren't anomalies, either.
Mike Dehring, assistant vice president of enrollment at St. Xavier, said they had more transfers than usual. "Between the first quarter and first semester we had 10 transfer students, which is an extraordinary number for us," he said.
St. Xavier gives students the option to attend classes in-person or virtually, and Dehring said the school made that decision with the students in mind.
"When we thought about the welfare of the student, it eventually became pretty obvious that that was the right thing to do," Dehring said. "Life in all aspects has continued here and that's again what makes in-person learning so important."
While tuition to send a child to St. Xavier is a little over $16,000 a year, almost half of the families that send a child to school there receive some financial assistance.
"Of the $4.6 million in tuition assistance we give out, it's almost entirely need-based, so that's really our focus," Dehring said.
