High school seniors reflect on losing a much-anticipated year to coronavirus
Most years, senior year is full of rituals. There is tradition in how the last few months of high school pan out, and those moments often become memories that last a lifetime.
The last first day of school marks the beginning of the end. Homecoming pep rallies and senior spirit week provide one last burst of school pride. For the last time, seniors play their favorite sport, take center stage in school musicals and craft new hobbies in clubs that cultivate both a broader education and the passion that fuels that. The year is spent soaking up every last memory with peers who grew up together over the better part of a decade, while eagerly sharing in the anticipation of the divergent futures still to come.
This year, senior year has looked a little different. In a pandemic, everything has.
The Class of 2021 has endured a senior year incomparable to any other before them – navigating hybrid learning, interrupted activities and, simply, the loss of time with others during a year where they hoped for it most.
And even as several districts move toward a return to in-person learning next month, March marked one year of pandemic education. The differences over the past year can’t be reversed, even as we inch toward normal.
It surely wasn’t a year any senior expected. But one thing remains true: It was a year they will never forget.
Zac DesVergnes, 17, Attleboro
The best part of school for Zach DesVergnes was the people.
The Attleboro High School senior considers himself friends with everyone. His favorite moments were homecoming pep rallies, where each class joined as one and he was free to mingle among them all.
But homecoming was canceled this year because of the pandemic. Junior prom, too, last spring – another chance for his class to gather as one.
And the stripped-down population under hybrid learning took away the best parts of school for DesVergnes.
“It’s not even school at that point,” the 17-year-old said. “I love being with everybody. But with Covid, it’s like I can only see my inner circle. That’s sad.”
He’s an outgoing guy. But when the pandemic hit, DesVergnes turned inward and used it as a period for personal growth.
He read a book early on in the pandemic, “Can’t Hurt Me,” which made him wonder if he was doing enough to unleash his inner potential. He took up new things outside of school to try and figure it out. He started swimming at the YMCA and running at Highland Park – activities he can do without people and from a distance.
After graduation, he plans to join the Navy, so in many ways it became an exercise for his future.
“School is a minor part of my life right now,” DesVergnes said. “Back then, school was the biggest part of my life. I loved my friends at school and little golden moments that would happen at school. But it’s sad to see them go without a proper goodbye.”
It also granted him growth in perspective.
DesVergnes lost a great-uncle to the coronavirus, and his grandmother also died during the pandemic – although not from the virus itself. But even through those challenges, DesVergnes said he soon realized his privilege and how much he had that others did not.
Throughout the pandemic his family maintained their jobs. They had a roof over their head – even if some days they wanted to get out of it – and had food to eat, friends to visit after the pandemic and cars to visit them with. For his family, the pandemic and the isolation it brought will someday end. For others, he realized, it might not.
“My greatest takeaway from this pandemic is to just endure,” DesVergnes said. “You have to keep going. Just endure, endure. Just never give up.
Haley Crandall, 17, Norton
A low in the pandemic came when Haley Crandall and her family caught coronavirus themselves toward the end of January.
In the middle of her senior year of high school, Crandall said it felt like life stopped.
“Being sick itself wasn’t that bad, but it was the fact that the world was still moving and going on, while we were stuck in our home,” the Norton teenager said.
In some ways, it summarized how she has felt navigating her senior year during a pandemic that interrupted every aspect of life with isolation.
Crandall said when she looks back on her senior year she will remember the masks, the one-way hallways and six feet of social distancing.
She had to quit dancing, an activity she loved and participated in since she was 4 years old, because she wanted to focus on cheerleading instead. When her fall season was postponed last September, Crandall joined a private gym to stay in practice. But soon after, she quit, afraid she was exposing herself needlessly to the virus.
Cheerleading picked back up this spring, and even with new protocols to follow, Crandall said it finally feels like some sense of normal is returning.
She hopes it can remain. School is set to go back fully in person in a few weeks, but Crandall is nervous about how it could impact senior events if there’s another outbreak.
“This isn’t a normal year,” she said. “It feels like everyone has already kind of separated and gone off by themselves. That’s definitely a feeling I won’t forget.”