One month after Etowah’s return to a remote-only setting, there has been much praise as well as concern. Many students find it easier to learn and thrive in a face-to-face environment, but as the number of quarantined students increases, the school is struggling to fully adapt to its fourth schedule change of the year. 

Beginning Oct. 13th, the Cherokee County School District (CCSD) decided students would come back for the original five-day school week, after seeing a decline in COVID-19 cases. With this change, the county hoped the downward trend of COVID cases would continue, but many still worry for their health and safety within the school.  

“I’m comfortable with [in–person learning], but I just wish they would require masks,” Sam Kopeski, senior, said.  

Many students were initially excited to return to entirely face-to-face, as the hybrid schedule did not allow for in–person communication with friends and teachers every day of the week.  

“Doing online, the teachers [didn’t] understand the amount of work they [were] giving out, and they were not able to help the students as much. The aspect of seeing your teachers face–to–face and being in an actual learning environment is much easier and way less stressful,” Rachel Anderson, junior, said.  

With countless technology issues and an inability to be around students due to the hybrid scheduling, teachers struggled to stay connected and accessible to them. Now that the majority of students are back full-time, they have the ability to work with their teachers in person while still using technology to their advantage.  

“As teachers, we [tried] to make sure that we [used] the class time to engage and interact with our students on the material that we [were] learning in class,” Victoria Carter, math teacher, said. 

Although many are excited to be back in the classroom, the rise in Covid cases has landed a multitude of students in quarantine, cutting them off from in-person communication with teachers and friends for two weeks. While the goal of integrating all students back together was to improve learning and communication, several students have found difficulties with this due to quarantine.  

“It’s been pretty hard to stay caught up on all my work especially if teachers don’t post everything they do in class,” Becca Archer, junior, said.  

With the new spike in cases, students are rapidly being quarantined, which could possibly bring Etowah full circle to where it began. In order to slow the spread of Covid cases and quarantines, CCSD suggests that students follow social distancing protocols.