Scheming to Stay Connected

School Days: Pandemic Edition

Jeremy Peyton Jones. Photo: Zoë Peyton Jones

Coming back to our Chromebooks for the first day of eighth grade at Media-Providence Friends School didn’t feel as weird as it could have. By then, I’d adjusted to the fact that I wasn’t going back in person.

When I first heard the news at the end of August, I rolled around the kitchen floor in agony, as if I were trying to get as much dust on my hoodie as possible. Soon, summer was fading away, and somehow I was going to school again. It was like when you’re outside at sunset, and you suddenly realize how dark it is. Just like that, we were having classes again.

Coming back to school is the weirdest yet most thrilling part of the year. My classmates all got way taller over the summer, and seeing each other feels like exploring a new place you lived in years ago. Over the course of the year, students form big masses, but on the first day, it’s all clusters. And this is the prime socializing time!! 

This year on Zoom, there were no clusters. It was a big Zoom call full of kids, managed by the adults. I love my teachers, but I have to admit that everything felt mild compared to the fast-paced pizzazz we experience on a normal first day.

Last spring, when my school switched to online learning, my classmates and I would call each other after class to do homework and talk amongst ourselves. It was a way for us to stay in contact and feel like we were together. It was easy to videochat with Google Hangouts, which was built into our school-issued Chromebooks. All was well until we encountered a Zoom bomber named Joe, a stranger who’d hacked into our Quaker Studies class to disrupt it. As a result, policies got stricter. Little did we know that this year it would get worse.

On maybe the second day of school this September, I tried to start a video call with some of my friends from my bus. An error message came up on my screen saying video calling was no longer available in my organization. 

We were not allowed to make calls to each other anymore.

We tried to push back with a petition and talks with our teachers, but ultimately we realized that the school wouldn’t budge. So we came up with a workaround. When our classes end, we let the teachers leave the Google Hangout, but we stay on to work and chat. While it’s no secret to the teachers, it’s something we can do just as students to make sure we still stay connected.

While I’m excited about going back to in-person school on October 12, I also know that about half of my class is going to still be going to school virtually, so I won’t be able to see them. I’m bracing myself for it to be tough: We’re going to have to be in a class without any contact, and we’ll always be under strict rules and schedules made by the school. There will be no uncharted time for us to just be kids for a moment. 

My friends and I don’t talk about needing to socialize, but the pandemic makes you notice things you take for granted. I’ve come to the conclusion that, no matter what happens, I can count on my class to find ways to be together. 

Jeremy Peyton Jones
Eighth grade
Media-Providence Friends School