Last year—around this exact time—I wrote an article with some predictions I had for the 2021-22 academic school year. While they all mostly revolved around the pandemic, I also focused on changes Lakeside could make to minimize stress for students. In my predictions, I hoped that Lakeside would continue some of their remote learning habits and policies for the in-person school year. I ended the article with the statement, “So there they are: my three predictions for next year. Although some are a little more bold than others, such as a maskless reopening, there is definitely a chance for me to go 3/3 or 0/3 on these predictions. Make sure to come back next fall to see how accurate they are!” So here we are, a year later, and it is time to revisit my prediction making skills!

I started off the article with a relatively bold prediction: I guessed that Lakeside would reopen in the fall at full capacity, without masks. At the time, it seemed plausible with solid vaccine roll-out and low caseload. However, a couple of variant spikes later, we were (at least) all on campus. We did end up going maskless later in the second semester, so I would give this prediction a B+ as I did also predict that we would stop using Magnus/Trace (though that happened earlier than I expected).  

One could say my other two predictions were a little less successful. One stated that Lakeside would make asynchronous days a permanent feature of the Lakeside schedule. I guess administrators couldn’t see that working with on-campus learning or didn’t like the idea of a four-day school week lookalike. Believe it or not, 550 districts in the US have transitioned to four-day school weeks! In my opinion, it was a bit ambitious, but I could honestly see it working if Fridays were turned into study/office hours/homework days on campus. But for now, this prediction gets a C. My other unsuccessful prediction was that Lakeside would make a switch to project-based learning instead of exams. This was the main way of assessment during remote school, and I thought maybe they would make a full switch this year. That didn’t end up happening, as we still have mostly tests. However, it feels as though there were slightly more projects as a form of assessment. As a result, I will give this prediction a C+… maybe we’re trending towards my prediction being correct. 

Even though all three predictions didn’t pan out exactly as I expected and some didn’t even happen at all, they all had their bright spots and some have the potential to end up being correct!