Going on years ago a pandemic took the U.S., nay, THE WORLD by storm resulting in many dying and many getting infected. The most susceptible to this virus were the elderly, newborns, or those with underlying conditions. Due to concerns over this virus, many schools were forced to close for the respective second half of their school years. Sounds familiar right? It should! It’s COVID-19 and THE PANDEMIC ISN’T OVER!

With that in mind, a few schools, including St. Edward, decided to give students the option last year to stay virtual if they didn’t wish to get sick. This led to a number of students being online for the entirety of the school year. Obviously, this made the transition to in-person schooling a bit more difficult because of them being out of school for so long.

To see how people were dealing with the transition, I reached out to members of the SEHS student body with the following questions: How is the school year so far? What did you think of online schooling last year? How are you dealing with the changes in the schedule, and finally (also most obviously) How is the transition going?

Here are some Edsman responses directly from Edsman themselves! 

1. How is the school year going so far?

Troy Jones (Class of ’23): The year has had an amazing start so far due to the five classes a day extra time in the morning also lunch. I feel as though I can manage the work that’s given to me without having the chance of missing out on time spent outside of schoolwork. 

Andrew Traska (Class of ’23): Pretty good. The first week was rough but things are improving.

Lebron Jones (Class of ’23): I’m vibing with the school year!

In general, the school year seems to be off to a great start and many online students, now in person, seem to think that this current school year is already a big improvement from last year.

2. What did you think of online school last year?

Lebron Jones (Class of ’23): It was great!

Troy Jones (Class of ’23): Online was rough due to the fact that there was only a handful of us present remote. I also felt as though I missed a lot of the learning because of the lack of engagement we could give.

Andrew Traska (Class of ’23): It only barely worked. As someone who started in person before moving online, I can say with certainty that both methods had their benefits. However, due to the fact that everyone was given a choice as to which method to use, neither were fully optimized. 

This question had more mixed responses, with 2 out of 3 feeling that either there wasn’t enough engagement or virtual learning wasn’t all that good. Both options were decent, but neither were as good as they should have been.

3. How are you doing with the changes in the schedule?

LeBron Jones (Class of ’23): I’m vibing with that too! 

(WRITER’S NOTE: I hope you are enjoying LeBron’s responses…)

Andrew Traska (Class of ’23): Very well. Personally, I had some schedule changes during the first few days of the year, but once those were ironed out things started going pretty smoothly. 

Troy Jones (Class of ’23): The changes are great I think that six classes a day were a lot for both the student body and teachers. With the time in the morning that we now have I can get there earlier and complete homework that would be due in the morning, and ask for help in case I need it.

The question about the schedule is a bit as expected. Not many people enjoyed the schedule change last year and starting school later in the day is definitely a plus side. The response to this question, to summarize, is basically (to quote LeBron) “I’m vibing with that too!”

4. How are you doing with the transition from virtual to in-person?

LeBron Jones (Class of ’23): Decent.

Andrew Traska (Class of 23′): Much better than I thought. I originally planned on coming back in person at the start of the second semester, but there were too many things I was unable to account for and this plan fell through. Towards the end of summer, with fully in-person school looming over, I surprised myself with just how well I was able to adjust. However, I do largely contribute that to the fact that I did not have a choice in this decision. If virtual learning was an option like last year, I can confidently say that I would have started off in person only to fall back on the alternative.

Troy Jones (Class of ’23): The transition feels great, I can finally learn and engage in the classroom.

Much like the last question, the responses are pretty much as expected. Most of the responses I received are (To quote LeBron once again) “I’m vibing with that too!”

Based on the responses to most of the questions, the transition to in-person is going a lot better than expected from a student point of view. To close out this article, all I can say is “stay safe and wear your mask.”