Long Beach City College started off the 2024 Spring semester by canceling in-person classes due to rainy conditions and flooding.
Professors had a slight feeling that weather might cause cancellation for the first day of class so they took matters into their own hands.
Students were anticipating the cancellation of Monday’s classes and were engaged with online instruction with the help of responsive professors.
“Thankfully, folks were anxiously awaiting the change to online and were able to make the changes they needed to,” said Ethnic Studies professor, Stefanie Lira.
Many professors hesitated to conduct classes on Zoom following the cancellation.
With the cancellation of class only being one day, most professors weren’t worried about falling behind during the semester.
“Students signed up for an in person class and I didn’t want to put the stress on students to get a laptop for a last minute Zoom session,” said Statistics professor, Cindy Enrigue. “I’m not worried about falling behind because we have the rest of the course time in the semester to make up for it.”
Anticipating potential weather related disruptions, professors proactively prepared for the first day of class.
“I would say my lesson plans were affected, but luckily, I anticipated the rain would be a problem, and I had time to prepare a welcome video. But had I not been diligently paying attention to the broadcasting of the storm, I would have had more issues,” said Lira.
Professors were concerned about students’ safety traveling to campus after the last minute changes to the semester’s first day.
“I feel good about it, I didn’t want to put the anxiety on students to get to class when the weather was not the best,” said Enrigue.
Had professors not taken proper steps to prepare themselves ahead of time prior to the school’s cancellation announcement, many would have been unprepared, affecting their lesson plans for the rest of the week and causing a rough start to the semester.