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By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – Members of the Shrewsbury High School Student Advisory Committee (SAC) met with the School Committee Nov. 18 to share their thoughts on what they described as a “tumultuous year.”
“On top of a global pandemic students have experienced a push for racial equality and police reform, namely in the form of the Black Lives Mater movement,” said Max Evers.
In addition to Evers, the advisory committee was represented by its Chair Aabia Hasan, David Lee, Nikhita Ram and Anushka Mukhopadhyay.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the lives of many people, and after a long quarantine, things are beginning to look up,“ Hasan said. “Shrewsbury High School has reopened with strict guidelines and students are excited to be back.”
“On top of that, we have also gone through one of the most turbulent and partisan elections in the history of our nation. Overall, students remain resilient, albeit a little stressed out,” Evers added.
Mukhopadhyay said that many students believe that the topic of mental health should be talked about more often and while the school has taken measures to help in this regard, more needs to be done.
“Overall, the schedule has been working well. However, it has been hard for the students to keep track of the schedule…,” she noted.
Lee remarked on the experiences of those in Cohort D which is the full remote model and is administered through a third-party vendor. One of the many challenges is adhering to a self-imposed schedule.
Students are overall understanding of the new lunch protocols of six feet distancing and not being able to choose where they sit due to assigned seating for contact tracing purposes.
“At SHS, the show must go on, and students are readjusting to sports and extracurriculars. Seniors are taking huge steps and have submitted their first round of college applications,” Hasan reflected.
“Due to the recent change in school procedures due to the coronavirus, I think that seniors have a seen a reduction in their senior privileges compared to prior years,” Evers said. “While many members of the class of 2021 are not happy with these changes, they understand the reasons behind them …overall, the class of 2021 is content with losing some of our privileges as long as we can keep traditions such as Prom and Graduation.”
