School shutdown provided relief from fear of spreading virus
ELLIS BISSONNETTE
Ellis Bissonnette was taking the bus home when a text arrived from a friend. “OMG have you heard? School is cancelled for two weeks!”
Ontario initially announced that publicly funded schools would close for two weeks after March break due to COVID-19. “It happened very fast,” the 17-year-old said. Her last day at school was “really weird because everyone was just kind of in shock ... a lot of the teachers were expecting to come back.”
Bissonnette, however, was also relieved.
“I really understood why and I was happy the government was taking action,” she said.
In fact, her biggest fear was the possibility that schools would not be closed long enough. Many students at her school travel during March break and Bissonnette said she worried they might bring the virus back with them.
Her aunt, who has Down syndrome and a compromised immune system, lives with her family. Bissonnette worried she might inadvertently expose her aunt to the virus.
“Especially because kids our age don’t tend to show symptoms.”
That fear dissolved after her family decided it would be safer for her aunt to temporarily move in with another relative.
Bissonnette said it was difficult to accept the loss of so many things in her final year of high school as school closures were extended.
“These things that you thought were so certain, like prom and commencement, the musical, it’s tough to see them all go away so fast.”
The chance to relish the final days of high school among friends might be gone. Schools are closed until May 31, and the province hasn’t announced if they will open again in June.
“That was the hardest part for me,” Bissonnette said. “You are supposed to spend those last few days with your friends at school.”
But she is also quick to put her losses in perspective.
“But, of course, we do have to look around and see that people are in so much worse situations. So I don’t get to do a musical, but I’m still safe at home.
“I was disappointed, obviously, because of things like the musical, and the yearbook, and all the extracurriculars I was in that are going to just not happen. But I’m also relieved because I’m not going to be putting vulnerable people around me at risk.”