With winter break over, students are now back into their normal rhythms but it wasn’t like that right away. Because of a historic blizzard, students had A.M.I days (alternative method of instruction days). These days had very mixed reactions from everyone, with some loving them and others just straight up hating them because it was very reminiscent of school during COVID-19.
“So I worked at Blue Valley [school district] when we were peak COVID and i got here [at Platte County] when we finally started to be able to be in person; I know that teachers want to get their content [out to their students], I think that’s great, and i completely respect that [but] at the same time, I also understand that kids need to be kids, they’ll be fine we will get them caught up. We did it before A.M.I. existed so I don’t know why we panic.” English Teacher Victoria Tessmer said
Some people saw these A.M.I. days as a set back to a lot in their life. But most saw these interruptions outside of school.
“I have two jobs, both closed up through Tuesday. So I had a lot of extra time off being stuck at home, which is unfortunate, I prefer to get out of the house, go work, [and make] money;” Senior Kamryn Brooks said “It was kind of weird to spend that much time alone because I’m a very busy person, I just work and go to school every single day, so it was weird to just be in my house for so long because that’s [unnatural] for me.”
In the case of some students, they said it as something nice because as people in such a digital age they are used to not being bored but sometimes being bored is a gift that they are given. They get to watch the beauty of life pass us by just taking in and appreciating every second.
“It just felt like COVID. dealing with that having to do with [being] isolated a little because it’s got you sitting [with] your friends, seeing teachers, seeing people you know, then all of sudden you’re just [at home with your] family. It just felt like that for a week, which is nice, but then it just kind of brought back that memory.” senior Kile Sollars said
Students sports lives were also interrupted, many games and practices were canceled, some were optional but some days the roads were considered unfit to be driven on some games and events will not be rescheduled unless the conditions are perfect for it, the dance team being one of those groups experiencing these setbacks.
“Both of our regional competitions got canceled. One of them was rescheduled for the first weekend of February. But, the first weekend of January, we had to cancel our first regionals because of the snow.” Dance Coach Marissa Pablo Said “Then the following week for AMI days, we had one day of virtual practice, where the girls were given an assignment to do routines and send video submissions in. So, I could make sure that they were staying up to date with what they needed to be working on for competition.
As for other sports pre-season training some students found it hard to train but some students managed to train even conditions that had them improvising.”
“We couldn’t participate but the coaches were kind enough to post workouts to follow at home, my friend Finley Kaser [and I participated] in some of those. We were really good [at] motivating each other to keep pushing through, because the workouts were a bit tough; we [did have] to improvise sometimes [ by using] gallons of milk [as weights].” Said senior Grier Brown
