There is no more division among the Sierra Pacific High School students as the school is slowly starting to fall back into its normal plan. For the 2021-2022 school year, Sierra Pacific has made some new arrangements from the previous year due to more lenient Covid-19 guidelines. Now, all students are attending school altogether, Sierra is back to a normal bell schedule, and more activities can take place.
Andrea Solis, a junior at Sierra Pacific, is glad that school has gone back to normal. “I’ve always been able to learn better with a teacher physically there to teach me rather than me feeling like I was teaching myself last year at home,” Solis said.
During the 2020-2021 school year Covid-19 restrictions forced students to attend school based on their last names and cohorts. There were three existing cohorts, these being Cohort A, who went to school in person on Mondays and Tuesdays, Cohort B, would go in person on Thursdays and Fridays, and students in Cohort C would stay home all days of the week. Wednesdays were distance learning days for everyone so teachers would post assignments for students to work on at home. It also ran on a block schedule, where on Mondays and Thursdays you would attend periods 1-4, and on Tuesdays and Fridays, it would be periods 5-7. This no longer applies and students now go to all seven periods on all days of the week.
This year, Sierra Pacific is back to the somewhat traditional bell schedule where students attend periods 1-7 for all days of the week. The difference in this schedule is now the first bell rings at 8:25 a.m. and has first-period start class at 8:30 a.m. Along with this, the school day ends in the seventh period at 3:40 p.m. Now all Hanford Joint Union High School Districts start and end school later than they originally intended to.
While there is more leniency with Covid-19 restrictions, there are a few students who test positive or are in close contact with those who have. These students have to quarantine at their homes for 10 days. They are expected to stay caught up in their school work to the best of their abilities while the teacher is expected to help them to the best of their physical ability. This situation can become very difficult for those who have to go through it and sometimes it becomes challenging in different ways.
For Kennedy Usher, a Sierra Pacific sophomore who has been quarantined before, it was a slight struggle for her to stay focused in her surroundings, “It wasn’t hard to keep up,” Usher says, “just to find the motivation since we [her siblings and herself] weren’t in a classroom environment.”
Something that came back this year that was much missed last school year was actual seasons for all sports. Football, volleyball, water polo, and all other sports at school are already back or will be for athletes to participate in. Audiences are full of families, friends, and students are all welcomed back to watch all sports and show their Golden Bear pride.