On Monday, October 25th, 2021, Korean International School Jeju shut down the high school deli due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19. The administration informed this through the morning announcement. Since then, the high school students have been banned from entering the deli for a week.

The administration team was primarily involved in prohibiting the students from using the deli. Mrs. O'Bryon, who is currently the vice-principal and part of the administration team, shares her experience of observing multiple violations against the school's COVID-19 regulations.

"Many students taking food upstairs are eating without partitions in big groups." She explains that it was an inevitable decision to make. "It was a temporary restriction to help students remember to follow the expectation," she said.

Meanwhile, this was not the first time KISJ chose to close the high school deli. In compliance with students who did not follow the rules and expectations, the KISJ decided to punish the students by prohibiting all students from using the deli. The forbidding period was more extended as the violation continued to be reported.

Apart from the deli closure, KISJ has made many regulations due to the pandemic situation involving actions like placing hand sanitizers in front of every class, keeping all desks at least 1m apart from each other, banning drinks without closed lids over the 2nd floor, and setting strict rules against masks.

In response to these regulations, Mr. Zottoli, the AP macroeconomics and psychology teacher in KISJ, said he thinks KISJ has done a "decent job in regulating the pandemic situation." In addition to this, he has shown some concern about the sudden deli closure that happened on October 25th. "I have a hard time with punitive actions that impacts everyone because some people are not following rules," he said. The COVID-19 regulations were made and applied to the whole school community without excepting any individuals.

The students also express discomfort from the administration's punitive action of suddenly closing the deli. Grace Kim, a senior in KISJ, shares her experience of the closure: "The sudden closure did not give me time to prepare a cup."

Moreover, she mentioned the "close lines in front of the deli," claiming that some school rules need to be "modified." She described how these observations could be possible dangers to the school's health and expressed her concerns about the holes in the restrictions. The 'close lines' she has mentioned is an observation she made from how students are closely lined up in front of the deli, standing near each other.

The concerns were mostly about the holes in the restrictions. One of Grace's concerns was that while only a limited number of students can go into the deli, why are there no people to watch the students waiting to get in the deli? As a result, these concerns sometimes make some students like Grace feel unsafe.

Although there are efforts to create a safer community, the students are deemed to have the least voice, especially in pandemic situations like now. As the most misrepresented group in the decisions made in the school community, many of the students' concerns easily get neglected and unanswered. Some frequently asked questions were why teachers are expected to follow different rules from the students.

Eventually, it creates an uncomfortable hierarchy within the school community, where students view the administration as their adversary rather than a team. These tensions can eventually lead to distrust between students and schools in the worst-case scenario.

Regardless of the complicated situation, the ultimate goal of every member of the school community is common; everyone wants to create a safer community. Even though having many concerns about the school restrictions, Grace shares the goal of a safer community. "I want everyone to be safer," she says.

Unfortunately, the current structure of how the school makes decisions is not an effective way to achieve this goal because it failed to consider people's tendency not to follow the announced rules. If more students get included in the decision-making process for the COVID-19 policies held in the school, it is very likely for more students to follow the rules due to their contributions.