Coronavirus hit our country like a truck at the beginning of the 2020 as it spread quickly to multiple states. Students left Greater Latrobe School District doors not knowing what was going to happen for the last few months of school. Governor Wolf shut down nonessential businesses and schools for two weeks conditionally , but that ended up not being the case. Everyone had to adjust to the “new normal” that was taking over our lives so fast and nobody knew what was going to happen next. The state of Pennsylvania soon found out that schools would be shut down for the rest of the year and nonessential businesses would be closed down for two to three months.

As I was a junior in high school, I had to adjust to learning online from home without in person instruction. I had to do daily assignments to keep up with the pace while trying to gain knowledge as we wrapped up the school year. It was difficult sometimes to learn topics because if I had a question, I had to wait to ask my teachers for help and sometimes they had multiple people to help. I realized that teachers were stressed because they had to learn how to be swift with technology in order to teach. Sometimes, I also struggled with keeping up with which assignments were due on certain days and making sure they were turned in on time. I knew a lot of students were stressed about grades because of how much we depend on for colleges, so I was ecstatic when Greater Latrobe decided to do a pass/fail grading system and I feel that it brought something good to a chaotic ending of the school year.

Now that I have entered my senior year, our school year is definitely looking way different this year. In the summer, our district decided that we have to wear masks and make sure to social distance up to six feet. It’s strange to think how we’ve gotten used to wearing masks and it feels like I’m committing a crime if I were to forget it one day. It’s also so insane to me how we have to take so many steps with so much caution when we come to school to maintain everybody’s safety. We can only eat in certain places, sit in certain areas, and limit who we’re sitting with to keep up with the guidelines of safety. I’m hoping that there is a cure for this virus so that we can come back to school like normal instead of living with caution of everything we do in a school day.

Our school started off this year with coming back on a hybrid schedule and a block schedule.The hybrid schedule of M-Z had students like me coming to school two days a week while being online for the rest of the days.I personally liked this schedule because it made me feel more productive with my school work and since there were less people, I felt more calm and collected about when I came to school due to a lower chance of being exposed to Coronavirus with less people around me. 

This schedule did not last long so students could go back to going five days a week. To be honest,  it makes me kind of nervous for our future since we are all back together now because there are so many people around in the school now and I fear that cases will start to be on the rise. I think it’s a good thing that we are still following a block schedule, are required to wear face masks, and social distance because even though we are getting somewhat back to normal, it’s still important to keep caution to keep everybody’s safety. I just hope that everybody can still follow these rules so that we are able to still come to school for the whole year so that we don’t have to go back to the struggle of online learning ever again.