Over the summer it seemed to have been a mystery if we would return to school this fall due to the Coronavirus. Our school came up with a plan and successfully completed the quarantine process with zero positive cases and students attended in-person classes and teams trained without interruption.
Recently, we successfully completed our second quarantine process at Northwood to make it a safe environment for all of us to return and train for our sports. First and foremost, to return to school every student needed to get a negative PCR COVID test no more than three before arriving at school. Everyone had their own move-in time to ensure social distancing and no crowded hallways. Only students could enter the buildings with their belongings. Parents and other family members were not allowed. As soon as you got to school you had to head to the nurse and get another test before your quarantine started. As soon as you were tested it was time to head back to your room and let the second quarantine begin.
This time quarantine was a little different from when we did it in August. The time period only lasted four days, and while quarantined in our rooms, we did our classes remotely. We were not allowed in our friends’ rooms during this time, and we had to wear a mask when we left our rooms to either use the restroom or go wherever we had to go. Our meals were all brought to our rooms and eaten there. We had organized outdoor times for each cohort to go outside and get some fresh air. On the fourth day we got tested again and returned to quarantine until the results came back negative.
The next week, when all our tests came back negative, we split classes half virtual and half in person depending on cohorts. Hockey and snow sports went to in person classes together, and soccer and independents went together another day. We were also allowed to start grabbing our meals from the dining hall and eating them in small groups in our cohorts. After a successful week of half virtual and half in person, the next week the whole student body came together again for fully in-person classes.
Senior Ashlyn McGrath said, “Theres obviously nothing fun about quarantine, especially when you have a single. You’re isolated from anything and everything. It was lonely. But it was a lot better than the beginning of the year due to the fact that the quarantine period was shortened. I mainly just did workouts in my room and Facetimed my friends to pass the time. We also were doing online classes during it, so that helped pass the time a lot too. At the end of the day, I’d do it all over again if it ensured that everyone around me would be safe.”
Since everything went well, it was well worth it to get back to having our classes in person and being able to train for our sports.
