Throughout this year, we have seen multiple changes to what we considered normal over the past few years of high school. As we move into a new year along with the reducing cases and widespread vaccination efforts being undertaken, we may begin to see a return to what used to be considered normal. The question that begins to be raised is what would students like to keep and what would they like to get rid of as a new year of school rolls around.

  Bishop Noll, much like other schools, has taken steps in order to keep students and faculty safe. One of the bigger parts of keeping students safe was the wearing of masks. A recent poll of the student body shows that a sample group of students are equally split down the middle on whether or not next year they want to keep wearing masks, or ditch them. 

  The same poll also provided insight into what the students thought about the current two rooms, 6ft. apart desk setup that we’ve had since the beginning of the year. Over 80% of the students would like to ditch it with only 16.7% of students in favor of keeping it. Another part of this is that out of all the students who took the poll not a single student wanted to keep socially distanced after school events such as sports and dances without a cap on the number of students who could attend.

   A unique part about what Bishop Noll has done is adding a virtual Wednesday. In the same sample group of students, all were in favor of keeping it. This isn’t very surprising with a virtual day that starts later, and doesn’t last as long giving students a chance to recharge before finishing out the week.

   Lunch inside of classrooms was also a new idea introduced this year because of COVID. Around 58.3% of students in the survey wanted to keep lunch the way it is now with 41.7% of students in the poll wanting to go back to the way it was before COVID. One student that that “I’m excited to have lunch in the cafe again and to have everyone sit closer together.” 

   Many students are excited about being able to return to normal high school things such as dances and sporting events without having to worry about certain restrictions limiting the amount of fun they may have had. One student said “I am excited to have homecoming and the Prom” Some students would also like to keep some of the good habits they made over COVID like working out. 

   All students are excited for certain aspects of the world to return with one student excited by the idea of “going to amusement parks”. Another student was excited about “Schedules returning to normal.”  Another student was excited about “Something that I am super excited to do again is traveling to other countries/states and feeling both safe and comfortable.” 

  With this school year closing out, we can only try to guess what the next year and COVID may bring.