Since the 2020 school year has begun, students and teachers alike have been attending school each day wondering if it's their last. English teachers will have students check out books much earlier than usual-- fearing that the school will go remote before they come back in. Many students no longer leave things in lockers, or no longer leave lab notebooks in their science classrooms. Both students and teachers have made quips, first about how we’ll go remote after Halloween, and then Thanksgiving or Christmas. Despite this paranoia, Needham High School has done surprisingly well. We have had 11 cumulative positive cases as of November 23rd, and no cases of in-school transmission.
As of right now, our school’s Coronavirus regulations remain the same as when school began. If you test positive, obviously, you go remote. Additionally, anyone in your classes is contact traced, resulting in them being remote for two weeks. Because of this, despite having just 11 positive cases, large swaths of students have been in quarantine. Stuck at home for two weeks, these students have had to take their classes remotely, cease participation in sports, and miss any socially-distanced engagements with family or friends. In interviews from five students who have had to quarantine, one as the result of a positive coronavirus test result and four due to contact-tracing, we can get a glimpse at what it’s like to have to quarantine. This is particularly relevant as quarantining becomes increasingly likely for more and more students.
The interviewed students ranked the experience, on average, a 2.8 out of ten, ranging between a 2 and a 5, with 1 suggesting a downright awful time, and 10 giving the implication that they had the time of their life. Sadly, but understandably, low. Carly Rochford, class of 2022, was on the higher end, and explained that “I was already going to be home for one of the weeks so I knew that I wouldn’t miss much in terms of education; however, I was a bit upset about having to miss two weeks of my sport.” On the lower end, we have Jane Villa, also class of 2022, who says that she “was honestly pretty upset because I had been doing everything right and following the protocols to keep myself and everyone else safe.”
The main concern in quarantining is whether or not these students are able to keep up with their school work, and keep pace with their classes. In terms of synchronous classes, the consensus seems to be that synchronous classes worked well. Julia Royal, class of 2021, says that “For GBP [Greater Boston Project, an interdisciplinary English class], I felt like I was learning the same amount since the class is taught synchronously. I would just join whatever cohort was remote. When I zoomed in, there was always another cohort zooming with me, so it was easy to learn.” However, for asynchronous classes, the students either had to zoom into the class alone, or only engage with the class through Google Classroom. Rochford zoomed into some of her asynchronous classes, and said that “I felt as though I was retaining mostly the same information that I would have been had I been in school; the only thing that was tricky about zooming into the in-person classes was that I could not hear all of the conversations going on in the classroom or student questions.” Royal had a slightly different experience, citing a specific instance in which “In my Biology class I definitely felt like I wasn’t learning as much as my classmates in school. One day we were doing a lab and I watched my partner do the whole lab over Zoom. I couldn’t help with the actual experiment and when it was time to write the lab report on it, I didn’t feel like I knew what happened, since I couldn’t see it in real life.” For classes that didn’t have the quarantined students Zoom in, such as one that Villa partook in, she found that “it was difficult to get the notes from classmates and try to follow along when I wasn’t entirely sure what we were doing.”
As could be expected, the mix of synchronous, asynchronous, in-school, and quarantined caused some confusion. It's often essential to keep in touch with your classmates in order to succeed in a class, either to understand the content, for help with homework problems, or as a study buddy. To this end, quarantined students were asked if they maintained contact with their classmates. Alex Shifman, class of 2021, says that he did--he explains that he stayed in touch with some friends in his classes in order to keep up with his work. Villa and Royal both shared that they contacted classmates in order to get notes and help with work. Royal, whose entire math class was quarantined, says that the group “stayed in contact with each other through a text group chat and communicated with each other if anyone needed help with anything.” However, as a stark contrast to these students who were in quarantine as a result of being contact-traced, a student who tested positive for Coronavirus, but wishes to remain anonymous, stated that they did ‘not really’ have contact with their classmates.
Outside of school, quarantined students also feel the impacts of their quarantine on their extracurricular activities, be it work, sports, volunteering engagements, etc. Most prevalently discussed in the interviews was effects on the sports seasons. Royal is a senior on Needham’s cross country team, and she describes missing two weeks as very disappointing, saying that “At the time, no one was really sure if fall sports would be able to continue the whole season. I was scared that the season would get cancelled while I was in quarantine and I wouldn’t get a chance to participate at all.” Other types of extracurricular activities were also impacted. Shifman, a senior in training for his upcoming wrestling season, says that “I could not go to the gym and working out at home is very difficult, so I did not work out as much as I wanted to,” and continues on to say that his inability to go to the gym almost pushed him to do cardio, until he remembered how much he disliked it. This is a prime example of activities that students enjoy being affected by their quarantine, even in a time when activities are already severely restricted. However, many of these students still found good ways to pass their time. Shifman says that he was able to spend more time playing piano, something that he enjoys doing, and he says that his quarantine was a good opportunity for him to play a lot. Rochford and Villa both said that running was a useful pastime for them, as it helped to destress and get outside for a bit. Villa also enjoyed reading while in quarantine, saying that it “gave me an outlet to think about something else entirely, even if it was only for a short amount of time, and I was able to just relax,” while Rochford found additional entertainment in playing with her dog. Another favorite pastime was Facetiming with friends, which Villa said, “served as a good coping mechanism because I was able to talk about schoolwork and share some of my frustrations.”
The students were asked how they felt about the rule that contact-traced students must stay in quarantine for two-weeks, even if they test negative. Shifman, Rochford, and Royal all got coronavirus tests, and all came back negative. Despite this, several of these students seem to recognize the prudence of the two-week policy, with Shifman saying that “I think it is the smartest thing to do to stay safe. Needham has a very low number of cases so it doesn’t seem worth the risk just for an extra week or two.”
However, Villa takes a different stance, her opinion being that “I personally don’t like this rule because I believe that if we are told the negative tests are reliable then we should be able to act on that and continue life as normal after a negative test. I think that it’s detrimental to students’ mental health and well being to be isolated for so long when you know that you are healthy and won’t put anyone else’s health in danger. It is definitely frustrating to feel totally normal but still be held back from sports and school and friends.”
The quarantine experience of someone who tested positive appears to be markedly different from those quarantined as a contact-trace. Our anonymous interviewee who contracted the coronavirus states that they didn’t really attend Zoom classes in their time quarantined, that they spent most of their time sleeping at the beginning, because they were tired and sick, and then later spent their time catching up on homework. They also say that their time in quarantine “affected my family because I did not see them at all for ten days straight.” In terms of their opinion on the rule that contact-traced students must wait two weeks, even if they test negative, they state that, though it didn’t impact them, many of their ‘buddies’ were mad.
In the past week alone, cases have begun to rise both nationally and in Needham, and more and more students have begun to experience what these five students already have. Quarantine, both as a positive individual or a contract-trace, left these five students, and many others, feeling a bit isolated, confused, and frustrated. With the social and emotional impacts of quarantining on students, it’s important for the school district to consider how students are affected as they continue to contract-trace the virus. As cases continue to rise in the school and the nation, and as the holiday’s approach, it may become essential to go remote briefly to avoid spread that occurs when mixing households for holidays, and to avoid forcing unnecessary numbers of students into quarantine.