Students who register for night school during the pandemic are saving themselves $175 for each class they take.

At Morton East, night school registration traditionally requires a fee for each session enrolled — typically $175 for each class.  But this year, with the pandemic, the school is waiving the fee so students can stay on the right track without having to worry about money.  In a random poll of 36 students, 16 students had no clue that night school was free right now; the other 20 did know.  

“I think it was because the school knew that many families have been hit hard by the pandemic, especially in an economic sense, with so many people sick or being unable to work due to quarantine. It just seemed like the right thing to do to help as many students get caught up with their credits, but not have the burden of having to pay during these tough times,” said Jeremy Robinson, former Night School teacher.

Night school is also addressing the challenges caused by the pandemic in the actual classrooms.

“(In my night school English class), we learned about SEL behaviors, then read a book called We Were Here. We had to look for those behaviors in the book and at the end, we had to do a graphic organizer showing 10 different behaviors so we can have a class discussion,” senior Joaquin Leyva said. 

It is unknown at this point whether session 3 will be free; it all depends on the state of the pandemic and the vaccine.