After a wave of the new Omicron variant, all after-school activities were canceled this month. Club meetings are expected to begin again tomorrow.

“The decision was made to cancel after-school activities for the month of January due to the unpredictable staff shortages including CCSD transportation, and to mitigate the spread of Covid,” said Assistant Principal Kendra Kelley. “Students and staff tend to be more relaxed after school hours and we want to ensure the masks remain to be worn properly at all times on campus to keep us all safe and healthy.”

In addition to the cancellation of after-school activities, late buses were canceled as well.

“I think there are a lot of kids who need help that aren’t getting help,” librarian Rosarita Olvina said. “Students that normally stay here after school to catch up on work and to get tutoring no longer have a place to do so. I think there are some teachers who need students to do research or use the computers or to meet with small groups that have not been able to.”

Some teachers are struggling to set up Google Meets to tutor students virtually because students are having difficulties getting home in time for online meetings.

“All my tutoring had been canceled,” Algebra II teacher Tawanna Ervin said. “I was going to do tutoring at home on a Google Meet now that I know how to do that, but the thing that was going to be hard is kids get off the bus at different times. If I started at 2:00 p.m. not everyone can be home and get logged in”

The various clubs on campus have also been having minor issues trying to set up online meetings and communicate with members.

“it’s a little bit more difficult to make sure everyone is on the same page by having everything online,” Dental teacher Kristen Winfield said. “Sometimes people have to go to work and can’t make it, we have to hold the meetings a little bit later and it does make it more difficult to include everyone as opposed to in-person when people can just stay after school to attend meetings. We try to say we’ll meet at a certain time, but again, a lot of people especially my older upperclassmen have jobs that they have to get to. Or some people don’t hear the announcements so they are confused about when they are supposed to meet or if it’s on a Google Meet.” 

With state competitions coming up for clubs like DECA, club advisers must find ways to continue helping members virtually.

“We have been trying to do mock competitions to prepare the kids, but instead half of our organizational time has been spent trying to figure out virtual meetings which kids aren’t as excited about attending,” Olvina said.  “The other thing is that we’re worried about state competition, if the virus gets any worse, there’s a possibility of cancellation and there are also parents who are hesitant to follow through with sending their kids to the competition.”