Students and teachers have officially transitioned into the new 2021-2022 school year in- person after a year-and-a-half of remote and hybrid instruction. 

This dramatic transition has brought many different experiences for both students and teachers alike.  

Being back on campus has been one of the biggest changes of the year. Schools were forced to shut down in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 virus. This caused students to attend school using online platforms such as Zoom and Google Classroom for the remainder of the year, as well as the 2020-2021 school year. 

The transition back to in-person has brought positive and negative experiences in people’s lives. Some students may have had a hard time during distance learning and are now able to overcome their challenges now that they are back on campus, such as being able to focus more or wake up to attend class on time. 

Eli Carrillo ‘23 has had a positive experience with being back on campus. 

“It’s going pretty well. [I’m] doing better than distance learning,” Carrillo said. “It was easy to transition back. It felt like we were just on a big break with distance learning. I struggled really bad with assignments. They were just hard and I didn’t really learn from them. It was hard to focus.”

The transition has also affected new students who are attending their first full year of high school on campus. Adrian Salas ‘24 attended half of his eighth grade year and all of his freshman year on Zoom instead of in-person. 

“Virtual learning wasn’t the best for me. I really wasn’t focused in the classes,” he said. “Personally it’s good to be back on campus just because I haven’t been on a school campus since eighth grade. 

For Salas, waking up to attend school virtually didn’t have a positive impact on him. Being back on campus has changed that. 

“With school [on campus] it gives me the urge to get up because if I don’t, I’ll be late,” Salas said. I feel like it’s easier to get up earlier.” 

Being back on campus introduced new regulations, however, such as face masks. All students and teachers are required to wear a face mask indoors while on campus. 

Lorena Mellado ‘25 has mixed feelings about this. 

“When it’s hot, the mask makes it harder to cool off,” she said.  

Not only has this transition affected students’ lives, but teachers’ lives too. Teachers had to also get used to teaching remotely as well as in a hybrid format—on Zoom and in-person simultaneously. 

Frank Ceja, who teaches the Information and Communications Technologies Academy at La Quinta High School, is happy to be back in the classroom. 

“I feel much better and I think the students feel better, too,” he said. “I was looking forward to it because I missed seeing my students.”

For Ceja, being able to see his own students again is the biggest highlight of the school year. 

“For me, getting through this period of COVID, we’re not completely done, but I think seeing my students and having them see me is probably the biggest thing,” he said. 

Being back on campus has also brought in possible opportunities for the new school year, like field trips. Ceja has five classes and teaches five different courses, and hopes to do two field trips for each class.

This plan is put on hold for now due to district-wide bans on field trips until the pandemic situation gets better, but if possible, Ceja hopes to take his students to a data center or a museum of technology. 

With the first semester coming to a close, the question is, what more is to come for the remainder of the school year on campus and how will students and teachers continue to adjust and adapt?