Back to Normal?

After a long nine weeks of following a hybrid schedule, Heritage Highschool is finally going back. Both Cohort A and Cohort B students are attending classes four days out of the week. The change is definitely different, but the school is trying to get things running semi-normal amidst the challenges 2020 has brought upon us.

In order to keep everyone safe, the school will continue to make sure everyone wears masks at all times, especially when students are in the hallways. Since all of our students are now in the building, social distancing is harder to enforce, but as long as everyone keeps their masks on, we will hopefully be able to continue going to school together. 

As well as enforcing the masks, each student is still required to get their temperature taken at the beginning of the day. This is another precaution that Heritage and many other schools are taking in order to make sure that all the students are healthy. Getting your temperature taken is quick and easy. It is also another safety measure so that the administration can catch symptoms of COVID before a student tests positive.

Because we go to school four days out of the week, Wednesday is still a digital learning day. All students stay home and do their work online. This allows a full day for the school to be cleaned before students return for face-to-face learning. The school is regularly sanitized and cleaned, as teachers spray down desks with disinfectant between classes and after school and janitors clean touch points throughout the school throughout the day. Students also try to sanitize their hands regularly. This way germs are less likely to spread. 

Lilianna Roloff is a freshman this year at Heritage so the whole high school experience is pretty foreign to her. This year hasn’t made it any better. “Since I haven’t been in high school before, I don’t know how we are supposed to be learning.” She says that the classes were strange when we were on a hybrid schedule. She didn’t have as much work as she was expecting to have, and now that everyone is back, that’s changing. Since everyone is now going to school together, Lily says, social distancing is definitely more difficult. “I like that we see all of our friends, but there is not much social distancing, especially in-between classes when everyone is rushing everywhere.” 

2020 has been a challenging year, and I think we can all agree to that. That said, between the bad bits we have managed to hold on to some of the good. With everyone going to school together again, the rules are stricter, but they are there so that we will hopefully be able to go full-time again in the near future. And maybe, eventually get rid of the masks. Heritage is a community, and if we are all working together, following the rules, and trying to stay safe, then things may begin to return to normal.