Five years ago this March, students across the nation celebrated a surprise break in the middle of spring. Eleven-year- old Jack Sellai ’27 was sitting in a school Mass when he and his classmates received what they took to be a blessing: two weeks off school. “But it wasn’t two weeks,” he said, “it was two years instead.”
Coco Boushey ’27 made a list of things she wanted to get done on the break. “I wanted to bake cookies for my friends, throw parties, maybe start knitting. I didn’t really understand what was going on.”
Steven Rissotto ’20, a Riordan baseball player and editor-in-chief of The Crusader, was finally going through the long awaited rituals of his senior year: practicing for graduation, taking senior photos, and enjoying his last year of high school.
On that fateful March night, Rissotto and the baseball team were preparing to play at Burlingame High School when they got the news: a wrestler at Riordan was confirmed to have that mysterious novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
The game was canceled. So was school.
“They told us we’re gonna have Monday off, and then Monday comes around, and then they say we have the whole week off, and then two weeks, and then like another month, and then we never went back,” Rissotto recalled.
Rissotto and the class of 2020 spent the rest of their senior year online; they never got to receive their diplomas on a stage with their family and friends cheering them on. Instead, their graduation was held in cars in Riordan’s back parking lot.
The pandemic marked the total erosion of routines. Rissotto, Boushey, and Sellai all found themselves attending class from their bedrooms. School got easier. The 5th graders became 6th graders and lost learning and friends in the transition.
“I literally lost all my social skills. I didn’t talk to anyone. I was only really friends with one person throughout the entire pandemic,” Sellai shared.
Kim Loder, Introduction to Composition and Literature teacher, had to teach classes online. She said, “During COVID, teachers could not physically, mentally, or socially build community with their students.”
“Because of this, many youngsters were deprived of an appropriate learning environment to increase their academic skills,” Loder noted.
Despite it all, many students fought to stay connected. Rissotto and The Crusader steadfastly continued publishing issues. Riordan Drama even produced a musical over Zoom.
Over the next five years, life outside of Zoom calls and stale bedrooms came back in. Rissotto finally got to experience college life in person during his last semester at Skyline College. Boushey and Sellai started a new chapter at Riordan. Social distancing signs and footprint stickers in checkout lines disappeared day by day.
“Covid feels like such a long time ago. I’ve moved twice and changed my room a thousand times since it started. It’s all different,” Sellai added.
High school proved a fresh start for Boushey and Sellai, as it does for most nervous former middle schoolers–though most don’t have a years-long global crisis to leave behind.
Whether the pandemic feels like just yesterday, or so distant it barely happened, all of everyone’s lives and selves today have been irrevocably shaped by it.
