Due to Covid-19, Greenwich Country Day School has been exercising a hybrid form of scheduling for students since September. Prior to this week, the students were only attending in person classes half of the week, while the rest were conducted over zoom. Now, a new schedule has been put in place, allowing students to take more in person classes then were previously accessible, while having the opportunity to socialize.The new schedule entails having freshman and sophomore students in school for three days a week, while juniors and seniors are in person for four days.

Two students gave their opinions on this topic. Annika Cezzar, a tenth grader, said “It’s nice to take a step back to normal.” Jose Gil Zalis, another tenth grade student, shared a very similar opinion. She had wished for the upperclassmen schedule with four days a week in school and just one online. Although currently impossible due to covid, many students have shared this same opinion. Most want to go back to a more normal school experience without zoom classes.

Dr. Winters shared some insights on the process of creating this new schedule. He noted that this decision was largely made by taking into account the opinions of the students, saying  “we had a request from the student government and Sam Weiner saying ‘five days in school with masks on is really hard. We would like to be there four days a week.’” This inevitably led to the final decision of having lower classmen in school for three days a week and upperclassman in for four days. Of course, students would like to return to normality, but the inconvenience of wearing masks has made in school classes much less desirable. Students seem to feel that having at least one day on zoom is generally beneficial given the circumstances.

Dr. Winters also revealed the reasoning behind allowing the juniors and seniors in school for four days, while the freshman and sophomore are in for just three. “We only have 45 juniors and 15 seniors and that made it possible to have them in school four days. It was strictly numbers,” he said. He also added “a benefit for the juniors is that they’re now starting the college process and we thought that they needed additional time to meet with Mr. Ramirez and to really be in school to access the resources there.” Although many lower classmen have expressed disappointment with this, it’s clear that this decision was unavoidable. 

Lastly Dr. Winters expressed GCDS’ main goal for this new schedule as well as how he’s felt this first week is going. “I hear from lots and lots of kids and their parents that remote learning is a real stress for them. Some kids are having a really hard time. They’re not getting the same level of grades. They’re not feeling good about things. They’re finding it very hard to connect with kids at school, especially those who don’t have a very strong friendship group because they are new to school. It’s been a big challenge. So balancing the desire to get them in more with what we can do safely is really what we’re trying to do,” Dr. Winters said. This struggle for students has been apparent throughout school during this pandemic. Students often find concentrating on zoom calls to be difficult and new students have far less opportunity to socialise than previous years. Dr. Winters added, “We thought this was a good step because it only adds thirty students to our normal number of students in the building on a wednesday and with the addition lunch wave that we created it keeps the lunch room small enough that I think it’s working”

Although this new schedule has not necessarily met the expectations and desires of the GCDS High School students, it is certainly a step in the right direction. This movement toward a more normal school life has made students more hopeful for the future beyond the pandemic. Of course, the struggle of masks and remote learning continues to burden students across the country, but GCDS students have been able to regain some much needed optimism through these tough times.