Editorial: Issue 1, 2021-2022

Changes. They are an inevitable part of life. In the past year and a half UACHS has experienced many. There are new teachers and students that have replaced the old ones. Places like the AFC and the Weiss Center are now a thing of the past. With everyone’s online mindset changing, we have a lot of catching up to do. 

Unanswered questions are now normalized. Why is it taking so long to go up and down the stairs? Who are these new teachers? What is happening with the relationship between NJCU and UACHS? Why is the school still open if there have been COVID cases? All of the changes and modifications have been a headache to keep track of; while some of the changes mean free lunch passes, it also means no going out for a week if you lose it. 

As we continue to navigate the feelings for this new year, we think of the old ways. We reminisce about our old schools or in person school before the pandemic and it even makes us miss online school. With online school we would get to stay in bed all day, rub the crust off our eyes then join a zoom. Now we have to get back to our old routines while keeping ourselves and others safe. 

With in person school it is hard to stay socially distanced, when you’re in the halls or on the staircase you don’t think of COVID you think of getting to your next class. As you push your way through the crowd you see kids aren’t wearing masks, kids are hugging each other, and the sanitizing stations in each class get ignored. Secret quarantines are happening behind the scenes while the rest of us are oblivious of it. Questions are falling on deaf ears because everything is being done by the book, so we are told not to worry. The one question that continues to poke around our brains is, “How long will the school continue to stay open?”