Covid-19 from a Delbarton Lifer

Looking back on the past year (or two), I can’t believe how much my Delbarton experience has changed since 8th grade. What first seemed like something no more than a small disease that spread around China turned into a worldwide pandemic that reshaped all of our lives. As we near the two year anniversary of that first lockdown issued by former-President Trump, I feel it is fitting to take a retrospective look back, as well as analyze the potential future of our school.

It all started in March of 2020, my flight back from the Heathrow airport in London just landed and as soon as I turned my phone off of airplane mode, Hundreds of messages and notifications started to appear. It turned out that school would be shut down for the next two weeks, and my brother, who was slated to go back to college the next day, was indefinitely stuck at home with me and my parents. This seemed like a time to celebrate, right? School just got cancelled, I should be jumping up and down! However, my premature celebrations were cut short by something nagging at the back of my mind: what if this was more than just an extended holiday? As it turns out, we were restricted to only virtual learning by Zoom for the remainder of the school year. My 8th grade graduation was cancelled and was replaced with a measly drive around the bus loop to pick up a certificate saying that I graduated from Delbarton’s Middle School. I didn’t feel good about it, and although the three hour school days were kind of nice, not being able to see my friends was a bummer. 

Cut to the next fall, and we were back in person for my freshman year, however, to my disappointment, there were lots of restrictions. We were required to wear masks all around campus, sports were heavily restricted, there was lots of contact tracing and random virtual periods, and worst of all, every morning we had to wake up at 7:15 and fill out the Magnus App. Ugh, what a pain! Anyways, although this wasn’t the same Delbarton experience as Middle School, it was still an upgrade from virtual classes, and I got the meet the 100 new people who joined my grade. As we moved into the winter, however, more and more students contracted COVID, and we had to shut down the school, again. Although this was a short lived period, it showed me that I was taking my time for classes in-person for granted.

In the fall of 2021, I came back to school refreshed from a nice summer break and ready to learn again. This time, we only had to wear masks indoors and there were a lot less restrictions on campus. Finally, we started to near normalcy, however with the outbreak of Omicron in the past months, we have had many teachers and students have to zoom in from home. Sometimes, over half of my class does not show up to school, which is disheartening. I asked the school nurse, Ms. Deirdre McAullife, about the future of the school and how we are looking for the next few years and she responded, “We do not plan to have any school wide remote learning, unless we had too many teachers out or the local health department orders us to close, as they did several times last year.” This is due to the high vaccination rates for both students and staff around the school. She also noted that “Our default at Delbarton, and I think also of the public health community, is to be in person for school and extracurriculars as much as we are able.” When asked about the future of the school beyond this school year Mrs. McAullife remarked that thanks to new treatments for the disease “By the spring or summer, we may be mask free, and by next school year, I hope life returns to normal.” 

Personally, I’m pretty positive about the future, and I hope that we can stay in person for as long as possible. Right now, I’m just appreciating the fact that I can be in school with my friends, even with masks. The threat of a virtual period still looms over the school, but all we can do right now is enjoy the time that we have with each other right now. And finally, I want to greatly thank Mrs. McAullife for her help with this article.