While most public schools have already begun online school, many private schools are still opening. With COVID having impacted every aspect of our lives, it has made the Board of Education’s decision on how private and public schools should be handling COVID increasingly difficult as there are different factors to think about. For the most part, the NCHSAA has decided to push back fall sports for private and public high schools. Calvary Day school started school August 13, and those who are doing in-person school, are subjected to the COVID precautions. However, some people aren’t going back to in-person school for personal health reasons.

Sports are not the only thing being affected at private schools. Most are having students follow the government’s guidelines as completely as possible.

“We wear our masks at all times, the only exceptions are during the mask breaks and during lunch,” Calvary Day school junior Alexander Kennedy said.

Even with the restrictions and safety procedures, some students already enrolled at Calvary have chosen to take advantage of an online avenue the private school is offering. . One of the perks of the program is that they can choose to return to in school instruction whenever they choose.  Not only do students have to wear masks and follow strict guidelines, the school has modified the class schedules to fit the needs of post-covid learning.      

“Our school is doing google meets,” Kennedy said. “We have an extra period, and our usual classes that are an hour are extended to an additional 30 minutes or so. The teachers aren’t interactive with the students for the most part, they don’t respond to the questions we put in the chat.” 

In contrast, the students at RJ Reynolds High School have been doing online school since the 17th.

“Unlike last spring we’ve switched from google classroom to using canvas and zoom calls,” R.J Reynolds junior Kathryn Hughes said. “Our class duration periods are the same, except for now we have synchronous and asynchronous times.”  

Besides the educational aspect of how both private and public schools are handling COVID, sports have been another important focus during this transition with the pandemic. For many athletes playing fall sports their season has been either cancelled or pushed back.

“Reynolds has cancelled the field hockey season and many of the other sports have been pushed back to the spring season, which is better but it’s still sad,” Hughes said. “I’m not completely sure, but I assume that masks will be required when walking to and from the field once practice or a game is finished, just for everyone’s safety.” 

While field hockey is cancelled, sports such as football will be pushed back to February 26th and for others like Soccer will start March 15. When certain sports begin again, the amount of games each sport’s season has will be limited and as for spectators, it’s still being decided upon.

“For soccer there’s a maximum of ten people allowed in the locker rooms at a time, and coaches are required to wear masks and the players on the sidelines must be six feet apart and can’t share water bottles,” Kennedy said. “All of the fall sports are being pushed back, for us the earliest soccer game is September 14 if it doesn’t get cancelled.” 

As we inch toward the start of in-person school for public schools, all athletes and students in general are anticipating to return and try to adjust to the rules surrounding COVID. In the meantime, both private and public school students are holding onto the hope that in a few months, everyone will be able to return to school and get their high school year back on track.