Now that the school year is coming to a close, and Governor Murphy has announced that schools will be open full-time and in person the following year, it’s time that we reflect on the experiences we’ve made.

I asked a few students the following question: “From the beginning of this year to now, how do you feel that you have adapted to the social and academic struggles the pandemic has caused during this school year?”

Most students agreed that it took a while to adapt to the changes that came with living in a pandemic. But as the school year progressed, things did get easier. A freshman, Sawyer Lanni, says that Lenape teachers’ higher expectations took some getting used to, but feels that “COVID helped the transition because, in the beginning, we would have more time to do work since we dropped a class for two days instead of the typical one day, and all the teachers moved at a much slower speed as a result of that.” Although this pandemic didn’t allow for a regular school year, it did help some freshmen ease into the experience of transitioning from middle school to high school.

However, that doesn’t mean it still wasn’t a struggle to keep up the motivation to be in school every day, especially since it’s not as exciting or the same as before. We’ve had to learn things along the way in order to adapt to the new normal. Rachel Lawrence says that this year’s struggles “taught me to not be so hard on myself and that sometimes you have to shake things off as opposed to letting them weigh you down.” It is definitely important that we try to take our tough experiences and learn positive life lessons from them.

On a social aspect, it was also difficult to get to know other students because we were divided into three cohorts for most of the year. However, now that Lenape has combined Cohorts A and B into one, many students can agree that it feels more normal and that we can finally communicate with others. With a positive outlook, freshman, Dan Baker, says, “Although my freshman year was not how I planned, I’m confident the future will be better.”

Looking back on this crazy year, it makes you appreciate all of the hard work that each and every person in Lenape has put in to try and make the most out of this difficult time. Our classes, sports, and clubs have had to adjust, and so have we. As we reach the end of the school year, we should take this opportunity to first pat ourselves on the back and learn from our struggles. When people are given the challenge of adapting to a certain situation, many will stray away from change, but now that we have been forced to adjust, we need to realize that we are more capable than we think. Over the course of this pandemic, our mindsets have gotten stronger. We’re constantly growing as people, and when we look back in a few years, we can say: “We did it.”