Blanchet students are back in person, finally, with Covid safety rules that give the school a much different look than pre-Covid times. 

The safety rules are the same rules BBHS students knew from spring quarter when the school had some in-person activity. For Fall 2021, students and faculty are still required to wear masks at all times while indoors. And while lunch is finally back in the cafeteria, blue tape and the sparsely populated round tables are a result of the enforced social distance policy. 

When asked how he feels about the covid rules Blanchet has in place, Jacob Laks, a senior at Blanchet said “It just feels good to be able to see and interact with my friends at lunch.”

This seems to be the main response from a lot of students. While reactions to Covid rules have been mixed in communities outside of school, the overall theme is that students are happy to properly interact with their friends again. 

And if students are excited, the teachers are ecstatic to be back. They cannot express how much they love being back in the classroom teaching all their students in person for the first time in over a year. All of my teachers started the first week saying how happy they were to be back.

Like teachers, parents are excited for their kids to be back in school. Angela Nichols, parent of BBHS Senior, James Nichols, said that “It’s good to see James back in school, especially with the looming threat of Covid-19 that could possibly change things down the line.”

Of course, we are already seeing changes to state policy that may change how we interact at school. A new statewide mask mandate was put into effect on September 13th, stating that any outdoor event with 500 or more people will need to have everyone fully masked. Meaning Mass on Mickey Nash field will require everyone to wear masks. 

King County is also still reporting around 560 new covid cases a day, a good reminder that this pandemic is still very much in effect and even all the rules our school has in place may not keep the virus at bay.