Welcome Back… Again

Students and staff prepared to come back to school for a second time.

Olivia O'Dell

After about a month of online learning, students are excited to see their friends and get the help they need from teachers. 

“I was honestly really excited to come back and see everybody. Being at home and alone is a little hard. Just seeing people is nice,” freshman Allison Lesue said.

Students have had to adapt quickly as the learning format has switched between hybrid, online, and in-person. 

“I think that it’s really bad for the kids that don’t adapt well to being switched around so much,” freshman Holly Parker said. 

Adjusting to so much change has been difficult for many. 

“I wish it was more consistent with the decision whether to come back hybrid or in -person because depending on if it’s hybrid or all in-person I feel like I change my mindset,” junior Olivia Stikeleather said.

This school year has been more challenging for students.

“To be online, I feel like I haven’t got all the learning that I would normally get,” Lesue said.

For some students, learning that school will begin in-person, four days a week, on February 8th was incredible news. 

“I think kids can get back some normalcy. We can all start being more active and actually having the right mental state that kids should have at this time in their lives,” Parker said. 

Freshmen, in particular, are thrilled to have a normal second semester.

“I’m really excited to see everybody and experience what actual high school is like,” Lesue said.

Throughout this school year, students have learned some valuable lessons. 

“I’ve learned a lot throughout 2020 and some of 2021 like you can’t take things for granted. Because just like that, all of our lives changed. I realized that I took a lot of things for granted before COVID hit. I learned life lessons that I couldn’t have really learned without COVID,” Stikeleather said.

It can be hard to find the light in such a dark time but staff and students are finally getting back to a normal routine. People have spent much time dwelling on what’s to come, making new plans as things change. Living through such a fluid situation, students must learn to live one day at a time.