In March of 2020, quarantine started. For the next school year and a half, students would either do online or hybrid learning and restrictions were kept for a year after in-person school returned. As the 2022-2023 school year started, restrictions have been lifted and many activities resume. Covid is no longer a threat thanks to vaccinations. For the first time in 2 years, fall sports and clubs are all in-person and more assignments and tests are being printed out and written on instead of being typed up and marked as done.

Returning to its regular schedule, Spirit Week is taking place from November 14th to the 18th instead of being delayed into Spring with a theme for each day planned. Masks are no longer a common sight throughout the hallways and there is no more virtual learning for when someone is absent.

“It feels like a normal fall, but, I don’t think I really know what normal is anymore. This feels normal now, but what’s normal now, wasn’t what was normal back then.” Sophomore Genise Marte said. “Normal changes, your old normal is not your new normal. I miss how things were like in the past, but I’ve become accustomed to my new normal.”

Genise is right, everyone has adapted to new normals that no longer stand out. Many restrictions that were placed to prevent the spread of covid are lifted and show no signs of coming back, but some of those restrictions have naturally been kept in Wayne Hills. The library still has a max capacity, preventing too many people from being in one place. More applications for school and jobs also have moved online, which many places are keeping for convenience. Two years later, students are still using their Chromebooks or other electronic devices to complete their classwork and submit their assignments.

Teachers are also happy to see students faces instead of the icons and profile pictures of school accounts or masks covering half of their faces. However, some students are still stressed with the change from online to in-person school and struggle to get back into old habits after such a long break. A habit of procrastination with a due date at 11:59PM was also created, and because students can easily access assignments at home, some will stay up until the early morning finishing up assignments they did not start beforehand.

Another point brought up is how the old normal will never come back, especially since a year and a half of being inside took away a lot of development that students could have had. However, with sports and clubs being super popular and guidance counselors checking in with students, everyone is slowly catching up on that missed development together.

So while this fall is different from 2019 for these reasons, many familiar events and some factors from the old normal have come back with in-person school. Even with the many unknowns of the new school year and the questions of what is going to happen next, most students view this as the first normal fall in 2 years.