With being back at school, it is a mix of different emotions. Some students are happy to be back- they feel safe in the schools and they love to now see all of their teachers and friends. For others, they aren’t as excited- in fact, they are disappointed to be back.
Why would students be dissapointed? Aren’t we all happy to be back in school, face-to-face? Well, not really.
Unlike most students who follow all of the protocols that were set out for everyone to keep safe with COVID, some don’t care at all.
It isn’t just students that don’t care about the protocols, even some teachers don’t care.
Last year, students would constantly hear the teachers complain to the students and tell them to “put your phone away” or to “pay attention and not fall asleep during class”, but now, all that students hear is “put your mask on right”, “put your mask over your nose”, “where’s your mask?”.
Students aren’t taking the protocols seriously while they’re in school and it puts others in distress.
Students have family to come home to, they are scared of getting their families sick.
It is very hard to try and stay safe during school hours, some classes it’s easy-you only have four or five students in a classroom. Other classes, every seat is filled.
While students are sitting in class, others don’t think twice of keeping their mask on. Students will sit in class and have their masks sitting right under their noses. Even some teachers will do the same.
Mant students complain in class to the teacheers about how they “can’t breathe” while they wear their masks, or saying that it’s “stupid” and “it won’t help anyways”.
It is a requirement to clean off your desk, lunch seat, laptop, and wherever you have been before you get there and after you leave. This is to keep students safe and will help stop the second-hand contamination that goes on.
However, some students will walk out of their classrooms and the lunchroom and will forget about this new rule.
On top of that, there is also a new rule that students and staff should self-screen in the mornings before they get to school.
This includes taking your temperature, seeing if you have a cough, a fever, if you’re feeling ill, and if you have any symptoms of the Coronavirus.
In reality, not many people do this.
Students just go with their normal routines and get to school, not taking time out of their morning to take their temperature.
This puts everyone at risk because anyone could be asymptomatic to COVID and have no clue that they are carrying it into the school, giving it to their peers, teachers, and everyone else that is at Utica.
Students and staff need to be more strict with themselves to take the time to make sure that they don’t have COVID or any symptoms of COVID. We all need to take all of the protocols seriously, too.
To be back to normal means we all need to start doing our part when it comes to the school’s protocols.
Cleaning off desks, lunch tables, laptops- it is all very important during these times if we want to get better and soon be able to go to school with no cohorts, no cleaning, no masks.