With rumors of online school, confusion on how the county is going to handle the recent spike in covid cases, and an unexpected snow week, the students and teachers in Anne Arundel County Schools did end up going back in person after winter break. Despite the obvious safety concerns for people in the schools everyone is back and as of now it seems as though it will be staying like that. But just because it is happening does not mean people are happy about it. Many students feel “unsafe” because of the current situation and feel as though there should have been a different approach taken by the county to address the recent spike in covid cases due to the new variant.

Sophomore Faith Williams articulated her concerns saying, “Going back to school makes me nervous because of the rapid increase in covid cases. At the beginning of the year I wasn’t too worried because the cases weren’t as high but now coming back especially after a long break  I feel unsafe. There’s so many risks we’re taking by going to school.” Junior Sarah Ator shared that she also feels, “A little nervous because of all the new omicron cases and we aren’t very spread out during blocks when people don’t have masks on.”

Junior Chase Nester does not completely agree with Williams and Ator saying, “I feel roughly the same sense of safety because I’m vaccinated and I keep my distance from people, so overall I feel safe” But he did say that he feels as though the school needs to be “stricter on actual contact tracing for close contacts especially” but because, “I wear a mask whenever possible and keep my distance” he feels safe enough being back in school.

Some students have also noticed a significant difference in numbers of students in their classes. Williams pointed out that, “There’s a lot less people in all my classes than normal. Some classes only have half the students, I don’t know if it’s from a majority of covid cases or just people staying home because they feel unsafe.”

While they feel unsafe at school everyone is trying their best to take personal precautions to stop the spread of the new variant.  Sophomore Caitlin Wingeart shared that she is, “limiting the people I see, and using a mask even though I am vaccinated” Williams says that she likes to, “always wash my hands and don’t take off my mask unless actively eating and drinking. I make sure I don’t get exposed to other people so I just stay around my friends to prevent it.”

Along with the students, the school is trying its best to keep up with some safety precautions that might have been overlooked in the past few months. Students shared that teachers have been more adamant about not just wearing masks but wearing them correctly which means that teachers will point out if students are not wearing their masks over their noses.

A suggestion that sophomore Emily Krucoff has in order to make school feel safer is to, “ be limiting the amount of people in the cafeteria, maybe by adding another lunch block. Or offering other locations to eat lunch so less people are maskless in the cafeteria.“ Williams agreed with Krucoff saying that, “I feel like we need more options to go to for red and black block because the cafeteria and gym are so full and no one wears their mask correctly, if they’re even wearing one at all.” Ator added that maybe there should be, “consequences for not wearing your mask” so that students wear them properly all the time.

Students have enough things to stress out about already with classes, tests, sports and other extracurricular activities. They do not need to worry about anything other than that. Williams summed it up really well by saying “it makes it hard to focus all day when you’re so worried about who might have Covid and who you could’ve been exposed to.” While at school all students should be focused on school and this recent spike in covid cases is distracting students from what they should be focused on. So remember to wear your mask correctly, wash your hands frequently and make sure to stay as socially distant as you can.