One of the major affects the pandemic had on schools was virtual learning. There were many more cons than pros to being virtual. “ I like to be highly interactive, and it was very difficult for me to do so because most students didn't have their cameras on. Very few students participated. It was mostly through the chat. I felt like I had to be very patient. Which was kind of stressful to me. Because I like to be a little bit more direct, you know, I think it's harder to interpret.” said Mr. Winikur, an English teacher at Carver HS. “ I think it's harder to interpret certain behaviors virtually than in person. So like, I can say certain stuff in person. And my body language shows that I'm not being mean or serious, that I'm just kind of trying to be funny or whatever. But that may not come across in a virtual thing. So I had to be really different.” said Winikur.

The shift from online learning to in person learning had its changes. One thing that did stay the same though, was the technology usage and it has had its benefits. “One major difference is that there's one to one Chromebooks now.” said Ms. Kouch, a History teacher here at Carver. “And so as a teacher who uses a lot, a lot of technology, it's made it much easier for me that I don't print as much paper before the pandemic I had to be really mindful of how many copies I was making. And, you know, it seems kind of simple but like I would, I don't know if you've noticed as a student, like I would always try to like make like half pages if I didn't need like a full page or, or have handouts with like really small font, so I didn't need to use as much paper because previously I would run out of paper. But because there's so because there's available Chromebooks now that's made it a lot easier because I don't have to print as much and I don't have to worry about running out of paper.” said Kouch

Another change from coming back to school was of course coming back to the classrooms after a year of being away. “There were more supplies that I needed, because just being outside of the classroom for about a year and a half, a lot of our materials were older, like markers had dried out like glue sticks had dried out and things like that.” said Kouch. “And a lot of the posters up on the wall were old and some of them even were torn down because when we when school shut down, our a lot of our classrooms were kind of sanitized, but I think in the process, some of our materials got a little bit torn up so there was definitely more things to think about, like buying new materials and that type of thing to decorate or supplies for arts and crafts like needed to be replaced.” said Kouch.

“So that $100 made a big difference and having more money to be able to spend on things that break you know, like a pencil sharpener and things like that and to replace older supplies. But in comparison to wealthier suburban districts, we don't have very much money. So like I think in suburban districts, like they have a lot more funds available, like probably like $300 or something like that. I don't know the exact amount and it depends on each school, but we have less in terms of money that we can spend and I think like our school we have a decent amount of money for things like books, but at the same time like I know in the past, I have fundraised for books and things like that, to be able to provide like a class set of a book that I wanted to read if there wasn't money available.” said Kouch

With covid still having its rocky changes in the world, schools still had to follow safety protocols, with coming to school. The school gave out sanitary supplies to ensure health safety, but those supplies do eventually run out.

“Yeah, so the school provided a lot. They gave us hand sanitizer. They give us masks. They gave us like stuff to wipe down all the computers and things like that. So when we first got back, we did have a lot of stuff that they gave us but that stuff does run out pretty quickly.” said Bickel. “And they did like keep giving us masks every once in a while. And a lot of wipes but I did have to buy stuff too. I bought masks, kind of for myself. So again, like switch masks throughout the day, since I'm wearing it all day. So I did buy masks. I bought a lot of hand sanitizer. Because students love us and had an aunt sanitizer and I do and I think they gave us like a bottle or maybe two bottles at the beginning of the year. And that went really quickly. So yes, I have bought stuff too.” said Bickel.

Overall, the transition back to in-person was definitely a re-adjustment, but teachers were able to ease back into the school year.

“It kind of felt like the first couple years of teaching again, where you have to kind of reinvent what you're doing and revise a lot more than you usually would.”