Before the 2021-2022 school year began, East senior Sean Yeritis harbored great excitement for his final two semesters of high school. His sunny outlook was dampened, however, by the news of the policy that seniors would not be allowed to go off campus during lunch this year.
“I was pretty angry at first,” Yeritis said. “But I’ve realized that we all need to do what we can to keep COVID-19 out of our school, and it seems like this will make a huge difference.”
Much like Yeritis, the senior class as a whole seems to have come around to supporting the idea of a “closed campus” during lunch, particularly given their caution to avoid the virus in their lives outside of school.
“That Carraway Chick-fil-A is tantalizingly close to us,” senior Davey Slick said. “But, like any responsible student, I never leave my house except to go to school, so it’s good that the protocols prevent us from being tempted to break our bubbles. Besides, it’s been so long since I’ve been to a restaurant that I don’t even remember what chicken tastes like.”
Slick visibly shuddered as he continued, “Going through a drive-thru for lunch would be the least safe thing I’ve done since I let someone borrow my pencil without washing it afterwards.”
Not all students appear quite as enthusiastic as Slick, but Principal Ken Proulx is confident that even the few students who might be annoyed by the protocols will respect them, as obedient high school students are known to do.
“We trust that our students are being extremely careful in their daily lives to not catch the virus outside of school,” Proulx said. “We know remote learning was difficult for our students, so we expect that they’re taking simple precautions like not socializing with anyone and wearing masks all the time, not just in school. After all, they don’t call it a sleep mask for nothing.”
Proulx is pleased with the way East students have followed district virus protocols so far, especially during rain-necessitated indoor lunches, during which students are not allowed to talk while unmasked and eating.
“Literally no one is talking during the indoor lunches,” Slick said. “It’s so quiet that I feel like I can hear the ants multiplying in the bleachers to gobble up our crumbs.”
Mostly, Proulx says he’s just glad that the seniors losing out on their off-campus privileges are taking the news in stride for the good of the school.
“While I continue to maintain that the virus hasn’t really been a problem in our school so far this year, I must also acknowledge that that success is due to the incredibly hard work of our staff, and especially our amazing students,” Proulx said. “Thanks to their diligence in avoiding the virus and remaining on campus during lunch, we’re staying on track to stamp out COVID-19 in our school. And if all else fails, at least we have plenty of soap.”
Photo by Atticus Crothers/The ECHO
