There was a problem with my online learning platform and now my grades are low. How can I catch up?

Don’t lose heart, says our elder. You can still get into a good school.

Dear EWC

So I’m still in school in this quarantine, and the online platform used to do online assignments is called Canvas. It glitched on me for one of my classes for an entire three units. I kinda passed it off, thinking that my teacher was getting lazy, so I was doing my other classes until one day all of my assignments started popping up one by one. I’ve been catching up with that class but I forgot about all my other classes, and now all of those classes’ grades are all low. The end of the year is coming up. How am I going to do this? I’m in ninth grade and I still have three more years of high school. Do you think I’ll graduate high school with my grades suffering like this? I’m a straight B student most of the time, so I’m pretty good with my school work, but now everything is adding up and I’m really stressed out. How can I do this? It all seems so impossible!

Good-Listener replies

I’m sorry you ran into that glitch with your classes. Don’t lose heart — there may be other students that ran into tech glitches as well. Try to speak to your teachers and explain the issues. Be ready to do some extra work, especially during the summer. Your willingness to do what you can to make up for the grades and missteps, will show them that you are truly concerned and willing to do whatever it takes. You’re only in 9th grade, and if you show improvement in the next few years this will likely have little effect on what happens. But, again, speak to your teachers and if you have a guidance counselor speak to him/her as well. This isn’t the end of the world — I did OK in school then had a terrible junior year. I was willing to do what I could to make up for literally failing a class (for real) and went to summer school. The fact that things improved greatly senior year, showed I was willing and went in my favor. In fact, the first semester of college didn’t go well either — which was a problem because I wanted to transfer schools. However, the second semester I did much better, and that improvement got me into the college of my dreams, that I never expected to get into.
What I’m trying to say is that kids sometimes have a rough year, for all sorts of reasons. You had a good reason — and I don’t think this will ruin any chances for getting into school. However, let it be known to teachers and guidance that you had issues and are willing to try and make things right. There’s no reason why you can’t — and go on to go where your abilities allow you.
Good luck.

Letter #: 460496
Category: School