At 7 a.m., you are awakened by the dreaded sound of the alarm. You roll out of bed and start getting ready for the school day. After brushing your teeth, getting dressed, and eating breakfast, your parent drives you to school. You get dropped off at your designated entrance and finally head into the building—wearing a face mask.
Olivia Ren. (Photo by Tim Clark)
This is what the start of an “in-person” day looks like for hundreds of Bromfield students this year. For the school’s reopening, students chose between the hybrid learning model, allowing them to be in the building with one-half the student body, two days per week, and the remote learning model, letting them attend classes virtually. In both plans, students have two days of asynchronous learning per week at home, and a fully remote Wednesday, where they spend half a school day participating in virtual classes.
According to Superintendent Linda Dwight, 87.5% of Bromfield students are currently participating in the hybrid model. Since the school year started, five students have switched from remote to hybrid learning, and four have switched from hybrid to remote. Although the new normal is an unusual experience for everyone, focusing on hybrid students, the question arises: What is attending school like during a global pandemic?
A different school day
As senior Taylor Caroom told the Press in a phone interview, “A day at school is good, but it’s a little weird.” Students enter the building through assigned entrances based on grade—wearing face masks, of course. Since homeroom has been eliminated, they start the day in their first class. As in a normal school year, the first two periods each last 45 minutes. The third period, however, has been extended to one hour so students and teachers can go outside for a 10-minute mask break, during which they can drink water, eat a snack, and move around. Afterward, they attend two more 45-minute classes in the building and then go home at noon for lunch. Finally, they finish the day with two 30-minute Zoom classes.
Adjusting to the new normal
Students clearly like certain aspects of the new learning model. For instance, Caroom appreciates that “teachers have been good about, especially in person, [ensuring that] you’re not on your computer all the time.” She added, “For English, we got handouts that we can highlight and annotate, or we could type it all if we wanted to instead.” And for remote students, according to Caroom, some teachers leave paper copies of the classwork by the front office for them to pick up if they wish.
Junior Julian Iverson enjoys the smaller class sizes. “Some of my classes are less than 10 kids—I even have one with three people in it,” he said. “That’s nice because in some ways you get a more one-on-one approach to the learning, and it’s a little easier to focus on the material.”
On the other hand, students also think some aspects could be improved. “I wish we could be in class more,” said junior Abigale Baker. “Class time is very valuable, especially if you’re taking an Advanced Placement (AP) class and you still have to take the [AP exam] at the end of the year.” Because all AP students must take the test on a certain date no matter what, Baker said, the lost class time cannot be made up. “[The exam] is not really adapting to you.”
For Iverson, the remote Wednesdays are challenging. “Basically, we’re on Zoom from 8:30 in the morning until noon,” he explained. “There are little breaks in between all the classes, but sitting for that extended period of time and being on those video calls—you just get pretty tired by the end of it.”
And, evidently, students are unable to interact with their peers as they used to. Freshman Oliver Deng believes “the fact that we don’t really have any space to socialize or talk in” is unusual. “A large part of the reason I like going to school is that I get to talk with people,” he said. “There are a few times where we can talk at the end of class or in the middle of the hall while walking, but [it’s still] really strange.”
Staying safe
Perhaps the most significant change this year is the new safety protocol—including mask-wearing. In general, students’ experiences with masks seem to vary. “If I’m late to a class, it’s harder to get around,” Deng said, “especially when you’re trying to breathe through a mask and go around all the hallways.” Iverson echoed: “Sometimes, I forget it’s on my face, and sometimes, I don’t—it depends. There is a mask break, which is nice, but sometimes, it does feel a little hot and uncomfortable.” Nonetheless, Caroom said, “Everyone’s good about masks; sometimes, [a mask] flips, but then people fix it really fast.”
In regard to social distancing, Caroom stated: “People have been pretty good about maintaining distance. Especially if a teacher reminds somebody that they’re not doing something [safe], people will be super good and be like, ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’”
Baker believes that eliminating homeroom and dividing the student body have helped reduce crowding. “When I get to school, I don’t see anyone in the hallway,” she said. “I just walk straight to my first-period class. And every time I walk to my class, there aren’t people clumping up in the hallway, like last year, because everyone’s split in half.”
Baker also reports that students are adhering to the mandated cleaning procedure. “Every time I’ve left a class, I’ve cleaned my desk and so have my classmates around me,” she explained. “You clean the desk, clean the chair, get hand sanitizer, and leave.”
However, there are still some concerns. “Some [teachers] are much more ‘strict’ about [safety], like if we have to wipe down our desks at the end of every class,” Iverson reflected. “There are also some times that teachers will forget to do that. Usually, it’s more with the hand sanitizer: some teachers won’t notice if a student doesn’t sanitize, and some will.”
In addition, although distancing is going well now, Caroom hopes that students continue to be cautious. “[Bromfield principal] Mr. Hoffman is out there pretty much through every transition making sure people are giving [appropriate] distance,” she said. “But if a teacher isn’t around, people gravitate toward groups with their friends, which makes sense because it feels really natural. If they’ve already seen these people without masks, they don’t really care.”
Moreover, Caroom is slightly anxious about shortened cleaning times. “You don’t need the full five minutes [at the end of class] to clean up because it’s just wiping everything down,” she explained, “but it’s starting to get cut a little closer, where I’m worried that [teachers] will cut it to like, ‘You only have one minute,’ and people go, ‘I’m going to be late,’ and they just do nothing. I’m not sure how safe that would be if people don’t continue to emphasize it.”
Overall, though, as Baker summarizes it, students believe that the school is “doing a very good job.”
‘Bye, thank you!’
After you leave your last Zoom class, the school day is finally over. You close your laptop and stretch—sitting for an hour does a number to your back. You do some homework, take a walk, and get through the rest of the day. And maybe, if you have time after dinner, you spend the evening FaceTiming your friends. Although this school year isn’t anything like you expected, you do everything you can to make the most of it.
Olivia Ren is a Bromfield junior.
