When Will In-Person School Return?

Mary Simonson

As soon as e-learning began last year, the biggest question on everyone’s mind was: “When will in-person school return?” The promised return of in-person school was pushed back from March 31st to April 21st to September 8th, with all promises broken. Now, it seems, CPS has learned their lesson about promises, simply stating on their website that e-learning will continue at least through the first quarter. With no end in sight, the realization that we students must adjust to e-learning has begun to sink in and speculation has quickly taken over the conversation about in-person school. “Well, realistically speaking, I think we’ll probably go back second semester,” says Miles Wandless ‘22, “ I think that in general CPS wants us to go back as soon as possible, and by then things will hopefully have cooled down enough that they think we can ‘safely’ go back with some safety changes. Ideally we should probably wait till there is a usable and accessible vaccine, but who knows how long that will be.” Chloe Nam ‘26, shares that sentiment, stating “I think that we will probably go back second semester because everyone wants to go back to irl [real life] school, but I think it would be best to wait a little longer like next school year so there’s not another outbreak.” Others, like Leith Mascari ‘23, are more pessimistic, “I think we go back fall of next year.  Even if the vaccine comes in, there are just too many unknowns. Add in the political issue, and it is too complicated to end soon. Also, some people will be vaccinated and others won’t, economic disparity will be a problem.” All things considered, students are sure that we won’t be back to in-person school next quarter.