Our First Year Back in School

By Dylan Sasahara

     Covid has affected many students, including me, to miss school because of quarantining, resulting in difficulty learning, and finally resulting in poor academic performance and grades.

     Managing assignments during quarantine is not easy for students and even for teachers.  Some teachers give out tests or projects or homework assignments, but many students don't understand the work because they were not there to see the lesson and hear/understand the necessary feedback in order to complete assignments.

If you arenʻt fortunate to get a teacher response or feedback, your assignment could be marked as missing and it ends up as not ending up being graded. Then there are numerous students who donʻt even do the assignment for many other reasons, and they are in the same boat. But regardless, when you're at home you need to keep up with your work, just like the other students in school.

For me, quarantining affected me more than once during this entire year because I've had to stay home a total of four times because of close contact. Also it has affected my grades negatively because each time I had to quarantine it made all my grades drop to Dʻs and Fʻs because of tests that I had missed.   Most of the time, itʻs not even the fault of teachers because of their workload in school and with students who do come that need their help, just like the rest of us at home.

     The four times I had stayed home last year were October, December, January-Mid Feb and March. Fortunately,  I only had to quarantine from close contact and I had never really caught it and suffer the physical effects.  But nonetheless, I had to eat by myself because I didn't want my parents to catch it.  That is not always the best way to have family time.

The worst time it had affected me most was I had to stay home from Christmas break to Mid February.  Thatʻs when my own father had caught covid from a passenger because he works at the airport for T.S.A, and then my mom had caught it from my dad from close contact. The end result was that I was foruced to be stuck in my room for about 2 weeks because both of my parents had gotten covid. I could only go out of my room when both of my parents were either in their room or outside in the garage.  My school life was literally turned upside down.

      Letʻs hope that this year will be the last time that quarantining and widespread infections will take over our student and academic lives.  Iʻm hoping for the best in 2022-23.  Unfortunately, if the last 2 years have been any indication, donʻt bet against the virus.  The virus finds a way.