Los Alamitos High School has been offering in-person learning for a couple months now and they were the first public school district in Orange County to do so this year. Even though precautions are taken, by bringing back students and teachers, there has always been the risk of spreading COVID-19. 

Not all staff members were comfortable going back so soon, and some teachers even considered striking the first day back to in-person learning. Currently, there are 23 confirmed COVID-19 cases at Los Alamitos High School, 18 students and five staff members.  Two weeks of quarantine are required after a positive test for Coronavirus. Some are anticipating that the school may go back to online learning if there are more confirmed tests. 

“I think that if more and more people test positive, we’re gonna have to shut down. Parents will want to keep their kids home from school if they think it’s not safe,” says McAuliffe eighth-grader Samantha Sumner. 

In Los Alamitos, there are safety measures in place in every classroom, whether it’s high school, middle school, or one of the six elementary schools in the district. Students are required to wear masks throughout the day and boxes of alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer bottles, and paper masks are filling up classrooms. 

“Coronavirus is altering the way the world looks at things now, and it’s unsettling and scary, but if we wear masks and social distance, maybe the world can be normal again,” states Daniel Espinoza, a LAHS twelfth-grader. 

Recently, Vice Magazine aired a segment on Los Alamitos opening for in-person learning during the pandemic. They reported that after school gets out, some LAHS students take off their masks and head to the strip mall across from the high school and the gas station across from McAuliffe Middle School. While safety precautions are in place during school hours, students are not monitored after the school day ends and not all students are continuing these safety measures. 

Hopefully, soon we will not have to live in fear of getting Covid-19 and we can go back to normal school days, and our normal lives. However, for now the threat is real and, especially while learning in-person, we must remain cautious.