Back on Track: The Colts at Full Strength
To say that the last 18 months have been a rollercoaster would be an extreme understatement.
As we all know, COVID changed the way we live. From March 2020 to June 2021, life consisted of masks, social distancing, Zoom, two-week quarantining, travel restrictions, and isolation. When the 2020-2021 school year came around, CBA looked quite different compared to the all-of-a-sudden exit in March. Desks spaced out, social distancing stickers and lunch, and constant sanitation.
With the 2021-2022 school year underway, CBA is inching closer to normalcy. There lunches are more social, there’s no Zoom, enrichment and homeroom are back, sports have no restrictions, and no quarantining (unless testing positive). The only recurring precaution is the masks, but with everything else normal, it is easy to ignore them.
With students being eligible for vaccines and the Delta variant (hopefully) having hit its peak, I sat down with Jake Zappala ’23 and Hugh Straine ’22 to discuss the difficulties of last year and the optimism among the community heading into this year.
Q: “What was the most difficult part of last year?”
Zappala: “The most difficult thing for me personally was the transition from a two-week online period to in-person. When online, I was able to sleep more since classes started on A-days at 8 A.M. and B-days at 10 A.M. on my schedule. I also only had four homework assignments at the most when we were online, with there being four classes a day. Going from the laid-back schedule during online instruction to being in-person was a killer.”
Q: “What did you do to overcome the challenges during the COVID year?”
Zappala: “I tried to take online school as seriously as possible. No phone at my desk during class time helped me focus. Another thing I did was maintain a morning routine. Rather than rolling out of my bed and opening my computer screen, I took a shower and ate a proper breakfast to be ready for my school day.”
Q: “With the first few weeks of school completed, what would you say right off the bat is the best thing about this year that was absent last year?”
Straine: “I think everyone is back to getting things done. Teachers are ready to help us and teach us more than ever, and kids look like they want to learn and bring the spirit back to CBA that wasn’t necessarily there last year.”
Q: “What are you most excited about regarding activities that were not available last year?”
Straine: “As a track athlete, I’m hoping to get back into meets and practices without masks or social distancing. I just want to be around all my teammates and bond like we did before the pandemic.”
The difficulties that Zappala and Straine went through were not uncommon, as the majority of the student body most likely felt the same.
With a lot to look forward to, the 2021-22 school year is already shaping up to be a year of getting back to what matters, which is to revamp the unique CBA community and culture that was greatly missed here at Lincroft, New Jersey.
