The Return of High Schools

My sister being temperature checked before
school this year. 

With colleges roaring back to life and high schools beginning to awaken from their slumber, it certainly seemed that our time of pandemics and quarantine were coming to a close, at least for now. But with numbers skyrocketing in many areas, and with our own President ill with the virus, it appears that we were grossly misled. Adjustments are continually being made and adjusted as our time with COVID-19 marches along, and they will likely continue to be made and adjusted for a long time to come. 

I always find it interesting to compare the current climate to that at the beginning of the pandemic, and because I was a senior in high school when the quarantine stint began, I was on the front-lines of the experience, like so many others. Whispers of the virus appeared in the news and on social media; major universities began closing their doors; and then roughly a week later, we were issued a statement regarding a potential shutdown of in-person classes at our tiny school. It seemed so unbelievable; it was all occurring too quickly to understand, and many of my classmates -- myself included -- didn't believe it would really come to a lockdown. Spoiler alert: it did, and as the virus consumed what seemed to be the entire world, many of our traditional senior activities fell by the way-side, as well. Our graduation was threatened and then remodeled to include a small group of family members and a single student in our gym -- the location of our rudimentary graduations -- at a time. We took what we could get. After all, something was better than nothing at all. 

This summer, I took a part-time job at my former high school, doing odd jobs with the custodial staff, and it was then that it hit me how different the next school year would look like. The Class of 2020 had lost out on about half of their year; to the next classes, however, school wouldn't even look the same. As we sterilized and cleaned the entire school as much as possible and helped to track the movements of the limited staff allowed inside, I realized that we were on the brink of a new reality. The temperature checks before work should've tipped me off to this earlier, but I don't think it was until the superintendent sat us down and told us the plan that it really struck a chord. As we moved desks to be an acceptable distance apart, often revamping entire classrooms, I understood the life my sister would be stepping into very soon, as a freshman in high school. 

As my departure date for college neared, coupled with the end of my employment, rumors began to swirl about rises in cases in my home county, and the question that was on everybody's minds became, Will in-person classes happen at all this school year? I was in the No camp. As August began and I left to pursue my higher education, my sister wasn't starting her high school journey until later that month --and it was planned to be entirely virtual. At the same time, my cousin had just graduated college and had landed a job as an English teacher at a nearby school, where students were also slated to partake in a virtual education. 

A photo my cousin sent me
of her empty classroom
during first period.

By early September, things had begun to evolve. My sister's school was making plans to split the students into two groups, who would attend classes on different days depending on their group. On their off days, they would attend class virtually. My cousin's school was planning a similar approach. And last week, the approaches were implemented, to various degrees of success. At my sister's school, a spike in cases appeared seemingly overnight, and as they prepare for their next steps to be announced in the coming week, rumors have once more begun to take shape. Many believe the school will return to a fully virtual approach after only a week-and-a-half of in-person classes. 

At my cousin's school, the story is even stranger. When they opened last week, offering students the chance to attend either virtually or in-person, my cousin had many classes that were entirely empty, the only interaction the faces on her computer screen logged into Zoom. She said it was an eerie feeling, especially for a first-time teacher, and I can only imagine the trials such new faces are experiencing right now. 

Truthfully, we are caught in a strange middle ground right now, stuck in the midst of re-openings and a potential new wave of shutdowns. I can't begin to guess what the answer will be, but I pray for everyone in our high schools right now -- and really, anyone in our education systems, teachers or otherwise. We're all simply doing our best.