This year has been anything but normal, and it continues to get stranger by the day. In March of this year, students in all grade levels experienced school closures due to the Coronavirus pandemic, cutting the school year short and ruining many high school seniors’ final year before college.

Now that the school year has begun, incoming freshmen are experiencing an abnormal start of their high school careers. Freshman Zach Hardy realized that starting school online was a decision made to keep students healthy.

“I didn’t really care that we couldn’t start the school year normal because it’s just school and with everything going on, there was too much at risk sending us back at the moment,” Hardy said.

With teachers and students adjusting to being completely online for this quarter, many are still learning what ways will help students learn the best. Not only this, but technology has been an ongoing issue for these past few weeks for both teachers and students.

Freshman Gavin Slaby explains that having patience on both sides of the screen is needed to have successful class calls. “Teachers should keep in mind that learning from any setting takes effort from both the students and the teachers to grasp a concept, and even more so now than ever. Teaching needs to be explained as well as it can be since being in the classroom is not an option at the moment and a lot of students are visual learners,” Slaby said.

For many students, the news that school was starting completely online didn’t effect them, as this meant not waking up earlier to get ready for school and getting there on time. The new norm is looking presentable from the waist up, and possibly having pajama pants on because there’s no where else to be.

Freshman Jackson Foster tells that being completely online does have its perks. “I don’t mind being online for school, if anything, I prefer it better because I don’t have to wake up early to get ready for in class school. Now, I wake up, get dressed and fix my hair a little bit, and turn on the camera when class calls start at 7:40,” Foster said.

The return to school is set to be Oct. 19 for high school students, following the 3-2 model that schools were initially going to follow at the beginning of August.