Students Return to ‘Normalcy’

Sophia Marsolek

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many changes have taken place within schools. Whether it’s new scheduling or mask mandates, these past three years have been far from normal. While the pandemic still remains present, this school year, Hellgate students attempt to return to a sense of normalcy. 

The district states, “While we are in a very different place this fall than we have been for the last 2 ½  years with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, MCPS remains committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for our students and staff while supporting a ‘return to normal’ and in-person learning,” 

Already this year, students notice a new atmosphere surrounding COVID.  Hellgate senior Mia Edwards said, “People are still wearing masks and a few people here and there get COVID but it’s pretty rare now.” 

Hellgate sophomore Evangeline Wright agreed, “This year finally feels normal again.” 

While some students are eager to get back to traditional ways, others feel behind and burnt out due to the pandemic. “I really didn’t learn anything,” said Edwards, referring to virtual and online learning. 

The district offered Missoula Online Academy (MOA) for those who did not feel comfortable with in-person learning. For some, this online learning style allowed them to thrive, for others, it made the return to in-person that much harder. “I think I procrastinate more because so many things are online and classes feel ten times longer when you’re having to sit in them and listen without breaks,” said Wright.

The first cases of COVID hit schools shortly after spring break of 2020. Cutting their freshmen year short, seniors now express frustration nearly three years later. “I feel as though I didn’t get the full high school experience,” said Edwards. 

Hellgate English teacher Darci Coffman reflected, “For us adults who have been around much longer, this might seem like a return to normal. For students, it’s like there isn’t a normal.”

Despite the hardships of the past three years, Edwards remains hopeful. “We as a school can realistically get through anything now that we’ve gone through a pandemic.” 

While we all try to return to a sense of normalcy, for many, the effects of the pandemic remain lasting “I think we all had to grow from it and some of us are still having to grow from what it brought… maybe without even realizing it?” said Wright.

Teachers and Administration Return to ‘Normalcy’

Julia Key

At the beginning of this “post-COVID” school year, Hellgate has decided to bring back our pre-COVID procedures. If you’re a student reading this, that means that on your first two days of school you spent class after class watching slideshows on how to be safe, respectful, responsible, a graduate and a knight. While for many students this seemed redundant and boring, it actually has a really important purpose.

The past three years have been hard for students, in life and in school. During all the stress of the pandemic and irregular school, we as students kind of forgot…how to be students. Whether you were stuck at home doing school through zoom, or only attending two classes a week, the first full COVID school year was hard, and definitely took us away from some of the fundamentals of school and learning. While the second year had some ups like returning to full weeks and regular classes, COVID still affected many aspects of school life. Now the Hellgate administration has decided it’s time to have some normalcy this school year. 

The first step to this was to revisit some of Hellgate High School’s core ideals. Principal Judson Miller said, “During Covid we had a different type of school, if you look at what happened in 2019, which would be the last pre-covid school year we had, this is almost exactly what we did.” 

Enforcing school policy and ideals was a standard procedure before COVID and a procedure the school is hoping to continue, said Miller. “We worked with student government, definitely a lot of teachers, and just looking at the things that worked in 2019 that we wanted to revisit.” 

Many students and teachers felt the approach to this enforcement could have been better though. “It was a lot to take for students, you know, long presentations, but I think it was important,” said Hellgate teacher Katie Wyskiver. “I think it can be overwhelming for a student to have seven different rules and syllabi from seven different teachers, and I think using (standard policy and procedure) to ground us to use common language, so that we are helping students understand that they have the same expectations, no matter how different the teachers are.” 

While the slideshows will continue they won’t be the exact same, said Miller. “We do change the (slideshows) with feedback, this was a first attempt to kind of do some orientation, so they will continue but they will look different,” he said. 

While students and teachers are working to have a more “normal” school year, there probably won’t be an immediate change. Many of us are still working to get out of the more laid back headspace we had around school during the last few years. “I think that COVID will still happen, teachers will get sick, teachers’ kids will get sick, students will get sick, but we have a much better system to come back to. And I think that the frequency and the amount of total derailments in class will be fewer and fewer,” said Wyskiver. 

Administration will continue to focus on students’ needs during the school year, and focus on them to improve the Hellgate environment. “We take a lot of data, so we look at attendance rates, blue cards, detentions, as well as student behavior, that’s something that we talk about weekly, and something that we did historically, so I think just revisiting those normal benchmarks will help,” said Miller. 

Looking back to a pre-COVID Hellgate and adjusting to a post-COVID world is the school’s current approach to getting back some normalcy.

School has been a struggle for all of us to get back into, but the teachers and administration here at Hellgate are working hard to make school a more comfortable environment for everyone.