By: RogersEdge Reporter Staff
Senn High School is presently in week six of the school year, allowing the students time to reflect on their joys, their struggles, and their concerns. The RogersEdge Reporter staff interviewed each other to consider how the reopening was a success and the challenges posed moving forward.
Saleha Abdou (Senn Sophomore) interviewed Moazin Masood (Senn Senior)
Abdou: How has COVID impacted your friendships?
Masood: I’m unable to see my friends in person a lot due to the whole quarantine and lockdown, and there is less communication and we were
unable to go outside a lot. That had a sort of a negative impact.
Abdou: What challenges have you faced since the school reopened?
Masood: A challenge I faced personally was my schedule. I talked to my counselor about it, and she said due to COVID, everything has been pushed back a bit, so I would have to wait longer in order to get the schedule wanted.”
Warisha Aziz (Senn Sophomore) interviewed Helen Camacho (Senn Junior)
Aziz: What is your opinion on schools being open during the COVID Pandemic?
Camacho: It is great for students who need the visual education in person.
It especially helps with the kinesthetic learners who need a little more help. There are going to be students who do not follow COVID restrictions. There’s going to be students who’re going to do whatever they want. There’s going to be people with their masks down and it’s going to be chaotic but it’s good to have everyone back learning.
Aziz: Do you think you did well last year?
Camacho: Absolutely not, I somewhat gave up. I was having a lot of trouble paying attention because you are at home, you want to rest, especially since I was in my room; I wanted to sleep a lot. I noticed that I have definitely paid a lot more attention than I did last year and I got more work done as well.
Aziz: What are your thoughts on the COVID vaccine?
Camacho: I think [the vaccine] is actually really good because vaccines are meant to prevent, which definitely data has shown that it has prevented a
lot of people from getting at least very serious symptoms. I do recommend other people like our age to get it.
Helen Camacho (Senn Junior) interviewed Warisha Aziz (Senn Sophomore)
Camacho: How has returning in-person learning made you feel in comparison to last year’s e-learning?
Aziz: I’m going to say I preferred e-learning way more than in-person. It
was way easier, the process wasn’t as hard, there was no struggle to find classes, the stress wasn’t there. Usually, I have anxiety and social anxiety. So for me, it was personally better, but I know a lot of people were suffering from it.
Camacho: How do you feel about the new COVID regulations here at Senn?
Aziz: I personally think they could do a little better. I’ve seen a lot of people not wearing the masks in the halls, just spitting on everything, just doing random stuff without them getting in trouble so it’s just weird. It’s not that safe.
Camacho: For regulations attending events and participating in sports, do you feel like it’s justified?
Aziz: I’ve run because I’m in JROTC, the masks do get in the mouth when
you’re breathing, and it’s not the best. But I do think sometimes regulations can be lessened when it comes to activities that require the person doing stuff that affects their breathing.
Ellen Hurd (Senn First Year) Interviewed Haben Jejaw (Senn First Year)
Hurd: How are the new COVID restrictions affecting your education.
Jejaw: I feel like it’s not affecting it to the point where I’m stressing because
I feel like the teachers understand that you’re coming back to school after 18 months and we don’t really remember the procedures. But it does feel a bit weird to come back.
Hurd: What is different? What are the main differences about the school from pre-COVID?”
Jejaw: I feel like one major difference for me is relationships with friends. Like now you can’t warm your way up because, you know, six feet. So it’s not like, oh, you meet someone in class and you’re friends with them. It’s more like you have to go up to them and be like hi. Oh, hi. You know?
Hurd: Do you prefer being in person or doing remote learning and why?
Jejaw: So I feel like honestly, I prefer both. Like, I would be ok with both,
but when it comes to the long run I would prefer in-person. When you’re in person you get a better opportunity. You get a very rich experience in friendships, academics, sports, clubs, all of that. Online, you have to see everyone from a screen or hear their voice through a laptop.
Feyikemi Rashidat (Senn First Year) Interviewed Lewis Haynes-Meyers (Senn Junior)
Rashidat: How has your routine changed after being back?
Haynes-Meyers: There’s definitely a struggle I’m noticing because, admittedly, in our online year, I would just like wake up and immediately go to class. I would just get food whenever I want and would take naps whenever I wanted. But now it’s not like that. Now I actually have to get up and have a good schedule and actual good time management and it’s hard to adjust.
Rashidat: How have your goals been impacted since being back in school?
Haynes-Meyers: Honestly it’s giving me a lot more sense of purpose and vision for what I want my goals to become because the online year was so tough for me. I’m taking a lot of journalism stuff this year too and that was an impulse decision driven by not having much of a purpose in the online year.
Rashidat: What are the things you’ve seen this year that are different before
quarantine?
Haynes-Meyers: Obvious things like the mask mandates and having to have a bit of space. One thing I am happy about in particular is they’re letting us eat outside for lunch. I don’t know if that’s specifically because of COVID or in general, but it definitely feels like there’s actually a lot of changes in school that I enjoy.
David Ponce (Senn Senior) Interviewed Emya Mayfield (Senn Sophomore)
Ponce: Do you feel like your social skills changed during COVID?
Mayfield: Overall during quarantine my social skills have decreased because I used to be the loudest person ever in a classroom and class clown. Now it’s always watching what I say because people are now very sensitive, and they haven’t been opened to the world.
Ponce: Is coming back to school a good thing for you?
Mayfield: I would say yes and no at the same time because I could catch COVID, but I can get educated better.
Ponce: Was it a good thing the quarantine ever happened?
Mayfield: I would say that it gave us time to think about our situation and reflect.
