The Prep News sent out our second survey of the 2020-21 school year last Thursday, Nov. 5 asking students about their confidence in St. Louis U. High’s safety programs as the school prepares to return to full in person schooling on Nov. 30 and their satisfaction with hyflex learning. 

The first survey, taken Sept. 5, analyzed satisfaction with full distance learning and confidence in the current hyflex model, where half of students in either the Ignatius (last names A-L) and Xavier (last names M-Z) were on campus for four days while the other half remained online. Results showed a high level of confidence in the polled group about the safety measures being taken in the hyflex model.

It is important to note that the results of each poll may not reflect the views of the school as a whole. Despite nearly a third of the school responding, there is an inherent response bias that comes with emailing a poll because those with stronger opinions may be more inclined to respond to the email. The results of the poll are available at the bottom of the article, but they can only be used to reflect the views of the 324 respondents, not the entire school population.

With a surge of new cases in the United States and record-setting case numbers in Missouri in the past few weeks, many students and faculty feel less safe about returning to school completely in person following the Thanksgiving break.

Despite overwhelming feelings of safety about the hybrid schedule from both the prior poll and our Nov. 5 poll, opinions were more divided in regard to the full return scheduled for Nov. 30, the Nov. 5 poll reporting a roughly 26  percent decrease in participants who felt very safe at school.

“In my opinion they should not be housing more people because unless they have some big plan that no student I have talked to has been able to figure out then there is no way to keep everyone safe,” said junior Henry Ledbetter in a followup interview offered to all participants of the poll.

Ledbetter’s sentiment was shared among several other students, many reporting that, even though they felt moderately safe or completely safe about the return, the school still needs to crack down on people who aren’t following the safety guidelines set in place.

“For the most part, people tend to follow the rules surrounding masks and distancing,” said senior Kevin Hickey. “However, I have noticed that some people seem to broaden the given exceptions -- for example, I notice that people have gone from ‘you can unmask while eating’ to ‘you can unmask while in the Commons in general.’"

“I think we will need a stricter enforcement of these rules because as we decrease the distance guidelines, the importance of minimizing the time in direct contact as well as maximizing proper mask usage will become much greater,” said senior Jack Rosenstengel. “I believe that the one-way guidelines during the passing period will ultimately become very important, because it is very hard to social distance during the passing period even with everyone going in the same direction.” 

The students were not the only ones concerned about safety at school, especially with double the attending students. English teacher David Callon reported that he felt safe on campus for the time being but had some concerns moving forward, especially after having seen some of his colleagues forced into quarantine.

“While we aren't seeing the spread of Covid-19 on our campus, I also notice a lot of ways that we've been letting our guard down a bit, especially in unsupervised spaces like bathrooms or open classrooms without a teacher,” said Callon. “ To bridge us to a vaccine, I would like to see us spend an entire week really re-enforcing the protocols and practices that give us the best chance of being the best version of SLUH we can be.  We should do this in a spirit of joy and service as well, with regular positive reinforcement from our student and adult leaders.”

Despite an uptick in concern since the last poll, the vast majority of the respondents, 63.6 percent, agreed that they felt either very safe or somewhat safe returning the SLUH after Thanksgiving with the new schedule.

“SLUH plans to return students to class has been well thought out,” said theology teacher Richard Wehner. “I think the time to come back after Thanksgiving is a good plan—and then going into Christmas break we can make any adjustments—which also means if necessary going back to (partly) all online classes to start 2021.”

“I think that school is very safe right now because we are wearing masks, which seem to be very effective in preventing the spread, as well as maintaining a safe distance from one another.  I have been surprised at how students have been keeping a safe distance most of the time, and a strong majority of students seem to keep their masks on properly the whole time,” said Rosenstengel.

Going into the Thanksgiving season and beyond, participants remained hopeful in their responses, noting that the transition will be difficult but is definitely something SLUH is capable of doing.

“I think SLUH should go into this knowing that there will be more cases within the community, but that through proper guidelines and contact tracing, we can come back to school quickly and effectively.

Callon in particular voiced how the new schedule serves as an opportunity to improve upon what we have and make the experience more informative for Jr. Bills.

“In some ways I think we treat this like the beginning of a new school year, with daily and constant reminders about our protocols delivered in a joyful and positive way,” said Callon.  I would love to see weekly brief surveys of students and staff so that we can all help our school leaders understand what's working and what we can improve on week-to-week.”

Graphs courtesy of Kate Hannick