The Paw Print

By Alexa Gola, Associate News & Features Editor

On March 13, 2020, Gov. JB Pritzker issued a mandate closing all public schools in the state of Illinois in order to “mitigate the spread of coronavirus.” Schools were intended to reopen after a brief shutdown spanning March 17-31, but instead remained fully virtual through the first semester of the 2021-2022 school year before shifting to a hybrid model to allow for both remote and in-person learning. This Monday will mark five years since the beginning of CPS shutdown, and consequently, the start of COVID-19 quarantine in the eyes of a student.

Throughout lockdown, virtual and hybrid learning and the eventual return to fully in-person education, The Paw Print covered the pandemic, as it related to student life. Articles included breaking news coverage of the Omicron variant and Chicago Teachers Union votes, features diving into the City of Chicago’s “Vaccination Awareness Day” and students and teachers’ decisions regarding masking and an editorial detailing “how in-person learning amplifies remote learning’s inequities.” The Paw Print also published stories that chronicled the impact of COVID-19 on students’ lives and created a platform for students to share their thoughts on the pandemic.

In November 2021, Contributor Anthony Arena wrote that as a result of the pandemic, “students did not have as much access to teachers as they normally would have had” and “were not able to communicate with their peers as well as they would have been able to had they been in person.” Arena interviewed former chemistry teacher Mrs. Moroney. 

Moroney said that she believed the greatest she encountered teaching in a post-online environment was that “the way that we were engaging in learning and in social environments was radically impacted in the past year and a half when we were isolated,” so teachers “wanted to carve out some space for kids just to remember what it felt like to be in a room with a bunch of other kids.” Additionally, she noted that “there were also some study skills that have not developed as they would have if students had always been in the building. For example, staying on task. I’ve seen a lot of changes in the way that students are able to focus while in the classroom.”

Two years later, Olivia Sampson ‘24 wrote, “with masks becoming commonplace and people you know catching the virus being an everyday occurrence, it is safe to say that the world has changed a lot throughout the last three years.” Sampson went on to argue that “we lost a whole academic year to COVID when we switched to virtual learning,” and “those who lost a year of high school (current seniors and juniors) missed out on some of the most important aspects of their high school experience.” She quoted Alexa Conforti ‘24 in saying, “Virtual learning made it difficult to make friends, especially since we were all starting at a new school. All of us had to rely on social media to meet people.”

Sampson also interviewed Emilia Malecki ‘25, who said, “whether socially or academically, you learn a lot in middle school, especially in eighth grade. It is such an important time for our development. I wasn’t ready to go to high school because I felt like I had lost so much of that time.”

Today, all of the students who experienced virtual learning at Payton have graduated, leaving behind a student body with a relatively normal high school experience. Still, the impacts of the pandemic run deep, and the reflections of many students continue to echo the sentiments published by former Paw Print writers. 

“I think students’ attention spans have definitely dwindled, as even I sometimes have the urge to play games during lectures,” said Keilee Billena ‘28, speaking to the impacts of online education. She added, “Also, maybe this is a me thing, but I can’t imagine writing essays and papers on paper.”

Ahana Gholkar ‘26 shared similar thoughts. “I think the learning techniques we learned during the pandemic affected us too. I would never think of using online editing for my assignments but I think it’s very common now especially for notes.” 

“Switching to online learning was a very dramatic event that has changed the way we learn from more of a traditional approach to more technology dependent,” agreed Amina Mavlyankul ‘28.

On the other hand, Kayla Reed ‘26 reflected on the COVID-19 pandemic through a more social lens. “Since I was young, the pandemic took vital experiences from my youth away from me. No more visits to the park, arcades, summer carnivals, physical interactions with other kids my age. What made it even more depressing was the online schooling. Though I tried my best to keep up with the work, it seemed as neither my online classmates nor my own teachers really cared about the school work being done,” she said, adding that the pandemic left her “pretty hopeless that life would ever go back to normal.”

Gholkar also shared some thoughts on the social impact of the pandemic. “I think COVID has had a lasting impact on how I view large gatherings or it has completely changed my view about treating sickness. I think it made a new normal, people still get COVID nowadays but it’s more normal than it used to be.”

“Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic felt like an odd stage in my life that I have kind of removed from my memory, as life seemed very monotonous, yet fairly unpredictable due to the outbreaks during that time ‘26,” Reed concluded.