Mr. Johnston was also personally affected by the mask mandate. He says, “One of my roles as the assistant principal is to make sure rules and policies and procedures are being followed and that was a difficult one to enforce because we wanted to be understanding of people’s mentality about masks.” Regardless of a student’s thought on the effectiveness of wearing masks, it was important to Mr. Johnston and the rest of the faculty to be open-minded and perceptive to these feelings. He says, “We didn’t want to necessarily assign discipline for that.” However, protecting the students and staff of MVHS was a big priority. Together, Johnston had his work cut out for him throughout the year.

MVHS senior Adian White agrees with Johnston about the significance of this change, emphasizing the intense disagreement of the student body on the mandate.

She also felt the school was impacted heavily by the loss of Wednesdays. The new gap between Tuesday and Thursday that students now face has created problems for some when it comes to learning. Remembering and getting help from teachers is more of a challenge now than it ever has been before.

Other students, however, love having Wednesdays off. White says, “I have heard multiple students say, ‘Oh, I enjoyed having Wednesday off because it was just a break.’ “ This is especially a benefit to those taking Upper-level classes in her opinion.

Science teacher Mr. Tom McChesney of course agreed with mask wearing being a big change and all other new rules saying it is “a totally different atmosphere.” Another difference he highlights was virtual schooling. As a teacher, he faced mountains of assignments with all new grading challenges. He says, “I teach chemistry, and although virtual and Google Classroom and everything works great for writing classes and things like that.... When you’re having to write formulas and equations and things like that, it’s really difficult just to type it in. The amount of time I had to spend writing virtual questions and then grading them and getting them back to virtual students, I mean I was spending basically the same amount of time on my nine or ten virtual students as I was on the other seventy students that I had seated.”

Of course, while teaching was different, so was learning. Mr. McChesney comments on his inability to really tell if virtual students were understanding the material. He also says it was obvious that some virtual students were “collaborating” on different assignments.

A struggle with education, focus, and motivation was to be expected this year. Several students faced many challenges when it came to retaining information and learning. White says she struggled quite a bit with how even in-person classes relied very heavily on technology. “I just learn better having all of my information taught to me by a teacher rather than just having to read something.”

Not all the changes made this year were negative things. Throughout the 2020-2021 school year, Mr. Johnston has seen a big improvement in communication through technology between students and staff alike, and he is hopeful that this change will last through the years.

However, several changes were negative. He comments on some “friction” between students, teachers, and parents. With every challenge that was raised, administration had one big goal: keeping students and teachers safe.

Unfortunately, what the school board thought would best achieve this goal didn’t always line up with what parents and teachers had in mind. Mr. Johnston says, “I think that was probably the toughest change and the toughest obstacle we had was protection for students and teachers and the difference between people’s thoughts on what should be done.”

Covid-19 made for an interesting, and somewhat disappointing, year for everyone. As for seniors, it’s a bit different. Thirteen years of education were building up to several key moments, and due to a pandemic, a lot of it was missed out on. White is very upset about this turn of events, discussing disdain for all the missed opportunities she had looked towards through all her years of school.

Particularly, she is “extremely bothered” by the way her senior year in band has turned out. Compared to several other school organizations, the marching band took a lot of changes that it didn’t seem like the others had to face.

Outside of just seniors, it was an incredibly frustrating year for everyone.

White expresses frustration over how tense the whole year was. Between a pandemic, an election year, and general disagreements over how the school system should be handling these things, there was a lot of “drama.”

Mr. McChesney, on the other hand, was frustrated with what he calls the “VA’s”, or virtual athletes. “The people that weren’t really afraid of Covid, they were afraid of being quarantined. So, in order that they could play ball, they chose to be virtual. And then I would see them in the hallways, you know not social distancing, not wearing masks, that was a little frustrating.”

The school year is finally, some would say thankfully, winding to a close. Now, people are turning their attention to the 2021-2022 school year.

Mr. McChesney hopes to “get back to education as normal,” saying, “If we haven’t learned anything about this, I think we have kind of busted the myth on virtual schools.” Now, it seems that it is incredibly obvious that sending children home with a computer is not going to help them learn as opposed to giving them the structure they need to truly gain education.

Mr. Johnston, on the other hand, encourages students and faculty to be patient. “We would like to say that things are going to return back to relative normalcy, but we don’t know how the vaccine is going to do, we don’t know if we’ll have another spike, so I think that just being open and flexible and trusting that we’re looking out for the health of our students and our faculty.”

All of this being said, the students and faculty have handled all the complications this year very well in Mr. Johnston’s opinion. He says, “When we look back now, we can say wow, it’s gone pretty well in relation to what could have happened. So I think it’s been tough at times, but I brag on our students and our teachers all the time to other school districts about how well we’ve handled the situation.”

Finally, Mr. Johnston says, “I really appreciate the efforts of our school board, the efforts of our administration, the efforts of our parents, the efforts of our students, the efforts of our faculty and staff. They have been unbelievable. It has been a tough year for everybody. I think everybody is using the word ‘unprecedented’ more this year than they ever have, and people are tired of that term, but the realistic view of it is that it was unprecedented and I think all those people I just mentioned have handled it as best as they possibly could.”