On Tuesday, August 24, 2021, the entire McCaskey student body came back to school.

The conditions were far from ideal: the Coronavirus pandemic, once thought by administrators, teachers and students alike to be a two-week stint, was far from gone. Cases of the virus had been steadily increasing amidst the new and more dangerous Delta variant, and a world that had been mostly maskless just a few months prior was becoming masked once more. 

For those who were especially vulnerable or who had family members at risk, the decision to return to school had been extremely difficult.

“My dad is immuno-compromised so I considered it (not returning to school or switching to cyber).” said Thùy Nguyễn, a junior. “Because of my mental health, my parents were just like, we’ll support you no matter what in this situation…So I was just like yeah, okay, I’ll go back to school… I need to be with people.” 

All students in campus buildings have been required to wear masks, a rule which, while mandated by Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf’s PDE Masking Order on August 31, is still being met with severe opposition in other Lancaster county districts. Just last week, Garden Spot High School was forced to suspend all in-person classes because of a rise in covid cases.

Meanwhile, at McCaskey, class sizes and packed hallways have made social distancing difficult. While many students said they feel safe at school, others expressed that they do not, either because of lax mask-wearing, low vaccination rates, or both. 

“In terms of COVID,  I feel like people could be way more careful,” said Kazchmir Marmolejos, a ninth grader. “I have really young kids in my family I see every other day,” she added.

Other students expressed a desire for stricter enforcement of mask rules. Administrators, teachers and staff are usually good at correcting students who are wearing masks incorrectly, but it hasn’t been enough to fix the problem. “I have quite a few classes with a lot of people who don’t wear masks,” said freshman Sophie Thompson. 

It is undeniable that in-person learning presents serious risks to students’ physical health and wellbeing, especially when students aren’t wearing masks properly. But what about their mental health and academic wellbeing? 

“I’m definitely having a much better time,” said senior Ashlynn Fenstermaker. “Online sucked,” she added. These are sentiments echoed by many other students, regardless of grade level. 

For Nathan Ferguson and a few other students, however, the title of “in-person learning” has been somewhat misleading.  “It’s still virtual even though we are on site,” shared the 12th-grader. 

The abrupt shift to completely virtual learning in March 2020 meant that many teachers had to abandon previous methods of teaching and adapt to an entirely new environment, which changed even more when half of their students were in the classroom and half were on zoom at the end of last year.  Now, because all McCaskey students have district-issued iPads, school is much more centered around learning applications such as schoology, which can be especially difficult when iPads, websites, or applications malfunction. For teenagers who spent a majority of the past year and a half on zoom, the return to technology has not been met with much enthusiasm. 

If there is one thing that the pandemic has taught us, it’s that there isn’t always an obvious right answer or way to do things. Last year, schools were put in the nearly impossible position of choosing between students’ mental, physical, and academic health.  

But a lot of the time, that health doesn’t look the same to everyone. An awareness and acceptance of our differences, coupled with a conscious and reflective mindset, is what, in the end, will keep McCaskey safe through this pandemic and beyond.