GOING BACK TO THE OLD NORMAL

SARAH JANE C. NAVARRO

School Year 2023-2024 is nearly ending. The Department of Education released DepEd Order no. 003 s. 2024 announcing the amendments they made from the previous Deped Order no. 22, s.2023 that the adjusted date of the End of School Year (EOSY) for 2023-2024 shall be May 31, 2024 instead of June 14, 2024.

This move of the Department got everybody’s attention. Students and teachers are excited to have their vacation early. This also means that the next school year will start as early as expected to gradually return the old school calendar which was deliberately affected by the pandemic.

According to DO no. 003 s. 2024, the start of the SY. 2024-2025 will be on July 29, 2024 and it will end on May 16, 2025. Then the for the SY. 2025-2026, the old school calendar will be implemented as it may start again in June and end in April. This is a good transition to gradually put back the old school calendar. It is favorable to all since the classrooms and the facilities in the school are not physically designed for summer which is one of the problems in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Students could barely focus when the weather is hot. The health not only of the students but also the teachers are at stake due to experiencing the scorching heat of the sun. The students could experience dehydration and they could also get sick because of the weather. In addition, the electricity consumption of the school gets increasingly high. The classes are forced to shift into Modular Classes and some students tend to disregard their classes when shift to Modular. To aptly put, a lot of sacrifices were made since the school year was changed because of the pandemic.

Luckily, through the initiative of the department, they are making their effort to slowly go back to the old school calendar as we adapt to the changes brought by the pandemic. Soon, teachers and students may enjoy summer vacation with their family without compromising their classes. Classes will not be forced to shift in Modular due to hot weather. They may experience again to start their classes with several typhoons along the way and graduation rites will happen again sometime in April. All of these will happen soon as we go back to the old normal.

-oOoTHE AUTHOR IS TEACHER II AT MALOLOS MARINE FISHERY SCHOOL AND LABORATORY