A School-Year Review of Covid at Waldorf
By Joseph Halverson
With Waldorf approaching finals week, the school prepares to complete a whole school year through a pandemic.
In a year of uncertainty (2020), several schools around the nation decided to have all classes online or have a hybrid. Waldorf decided to go ahead and return to in-person classes after moving to online in March earlier that year.
With students returning to Forest City, people were coming from all across the nation to join in one spot. The school conducted Covid tests on people returning to campus.
In the first two months of being back on campus, Waldorf had a total of 74 positive tests and numerous contact-traces. Waldorf bounced around from green status, to yellow status, to orange status.
As Waldorf battled the spread of COVID, the school was able to remain open the whole semester, despite the numerous positive tests. Waldorf went into Christmas break with a total of 138 positive tests throughout the semester.
As students returned from Christmas break, some students feared Waldorf would face the same number of tests as were experienced first semester. Waldorf sophomore Morgan Dostal was one of the students returning from Christmas break.
“With how the students body tested in the first semester, I was worried the second semester would look the same,” Dostal said. “I also heard about different strains of the virus would create more positive tests.”
But Waldorf saw a drop in positive cases compared to first semester. As of today (April 22, 2021), Waldorf has only seen 23 positive tests on campus for spring semester of 2021, only 6% of what Waldorf experienced first semester.
Students look forward to completing their finals and head into Summer break, completing a whole semester on campus during a Pandemic.
Luke Johnson, a Waldorf sophomore, looks forward to how the campus will look next school year.
“I know several students who did not attend classes on campus this year,” Johnson said. “I think the campus will look more crowded next semester with more kids back on campus. I am also hoping in the summer that things start to return the normal back before 2020, and we can go to classes and places in public without masks.”