By: Ayen Riak
As we edge toward the month of June we must give our seasonal applause to the seniors of the 2022-23 school year, for making it this far in their high school careers: four years is no simple feat in the often mundane institution we know as high school! Though the senior class has yet to shift their tassels and receive their diplomas, something must be said of the pivotal milestone one lone graduating class of ’05 Gen Z’s–you heard right, no other class of Central Collegiate alumni–had surpassed to save the date for the June 29th grad ceremonies.
There’s no denying the fatal grips the coronavirus held on adolescence: suspending in-school interactions, barring extracurriculars from taking place, and enforcing extensive, brutal protocols on our youth. Everything from masking, quarantining with zoom meetings, diminished class sizes, and the effect of a block system–anybody who’d been stuck with physics, chemistry, calculus, or AP’s in pairs, during the two classes per two month rotation, I truly feel sorry for you! The demands weren’t easy, and often they wore on the student attendance record. But of all the students that didn’t particularly enjoy the thrusts of restrictive learning, who had it worse? Class of 2020 was essentially through high school; having their pre-covid fun those previous three years; prior to March 2020, they left with a five month vacation before college. Class of 2021 also enjoyed two glorious years of uninterruption, although their graduation situation wasn’t ideal, set in the smoldering heat of a student-staff parking lot. And the 2022 graduates had their whole freshman year preceding covid, coupled with a reset of the natural school setting once clubs came to stay in their final year.
Ultimately, the burden fell upon our graduates of 2023, “the covid 9’s,” to redeem some semblance of normalcy as the pandemic disrupted their freshman year. Battered by the sudden whims of the virus, they were dealt with turntables after being denied spring sports and a thorough devotion to their second semester grade 9 studies. Coming back from a half taught school year as sophomores in 2020-21, they were often asked if their teachers covered this or that subject. “Didn’t you guys learn this?” became the common ask until the thought registered with teachers, primarily Foundations and Pre Calculus instructors who’d often made this inquiry before realizing: “Oh ya, you’re the covid 9s!”
Gone were the days of spontaneous foreign travels administered by the school, or the annual road trip for Model UN kids to Winnipeg, for Class of 2023. Mental health resources early on in their high schooling were scarce because, for some, fewer clubs and constant transition to online school per covid protocol made it harder to form bonds with guidance consuelors. Even more depleting, fewer kids in classes with students unknown to them made it harder to make friends. However, one too many weekend parties leading to cop calls and covid outbreaks in 2020 and 2021 is saying otherwise–some kids felt breaking the rules was the only way they’d maintain friendships and make new ones. Regardless, it’s suffice to say that we all had struggles as young adults of a global pandemic. But I bet you none other than the covid 9’s–as the remaining normies of pre-covid fun, who still attend Central their grade 12 year–could tell the younger student body of grade 9’s, 10’s, and 11’s below them, what high school was like before corona struck. They’d seen the calm before the storm, and thankfully transitioned to a new dawn of typical clubs, academics, and school functions before leaving Central.
Oh Class of 2023, your time here is coming to a close. To ensure you get the proper sendoff, I leave you with this endearing message. You’ve seen your first year upended by covid, while the last was practically indifferent to the aftermath of covid mayhem. Each and every one of you, whatever path you hope to take in life that you’ve already deemed yourself unworthy of, know this. Here at Central, you came through chaos! You sat through the worst of it going into multiple quarantines, with a ban of sports and clubs. Yet here you are, triumphant in your high school careers after your patience and sticking with it had curbed disappointing outcomes to fulfill your last year of academics and extracurriculars without hiddurance. You truly are the victors of a natural disaster: believe that the process requires rest not forfeiting and you will succeed!