BY JANAE JOACHIM

At the beginning of August, Wadsworth City School district announced that students could choose to go back to school in person or do school online. Of course, going back to school would come with lots of new safety measures and precautions. One of those precautions is that all students sitting within three feet away from a covid-positive student must quarantine for fourteen days after the exposure. 

Not even a week of school had gone by and there was a positive case at Wadsworth High School. The Medina County Health Department called the parents of the students who had been sitting within three feet from the positive student and told them that their child could not return to school for two weeks.These students were instructed to do their school work online through various platforms including Google Classroom, Google Meet, etc. 

“At first I was really shocked, then the first three days of it I was just paranoid every time I had a tickle in my throat I was like ‘Oh my gosh I have Covid!’ and then towards the end of the first week I was like I do not have it and I was annoyed that I had to be home,” said junior Emily Reese. 

I was also one of the students who had to be quarantined, and I would check my temperature first thing every morning to make sure that I was not getting sick. This paranoia was strong at first because both of my parents are at high risk due to their underlying conditions. However, as the days turned into weeks and I was showing no symptoms, I began to feel frustrated in my house.  

“I could not go anywhere, I was just kinda at home,” said Reese. “I still was able to talk to my friends but I could not really get together with them.”

It truly was upsetting to have to do school at home while my peers got to go in person. In addition to technical difficulties, there was the constant worry that I was missing instruction that the teacher was giving out or that I was not seeing an assignment that I was supposed to do. 

 “It was really difficult because a lot of times the connection would not be very good, so sometimes I would not be able to hear what they were saying,” said Reese. 

This bad connection ended up giving my Spanish class less time to work on our notes one day. The teacher called on me and my microphone was taking longer than it should have to turn on. This delay gave the teacher and class no choice but to wait for my microphone to load, so this gave us less than ideal class time left. 

“One day my chromebook lagged, so I Iogged onto my AP Lang class late and started my timed writing late,” said  junior Rachel Murphy. “I also missed an assignment which gave me a zero.”

I got to come back to school on Friday, September 18 along with the majority of the rest of the students who were in quarantine during the first few weeks of September. I felt a little out of place because my classmates had already gotten used to their seats and the flow of class, but I was still confused and focused on catching up. What helped me was that my teachers were aware of the fact that I was coming back on that day, which was not the case for some students. 

“It was interesting because a lot of people were confused that I was coming back early and they asked, ‘Is anyone else coming back?’” said Murphy. 

Murphy was gone for Medina County Junior Leadership on Thursday, September 3, so she was allowed to come back to school two weeks after on Thursday, September 17. Both she and Regan Simpson were supposed to come back that day, but Simpson decided to continue doing online school. 

All of the students who were put under quarantine for the first few weeks of September, including myself, are back to school now. However, as more cases of COVID are caught, more students will continue to be put under quarantine and have to do school online.