2020 was definitely a hard year for most Americans. A year full of stay at home orders, coronavirus, murder hornets, an election and so much more. This was a year full of surprises and most of it was spent wearing a mask. Starting of 2020, I don’t think anyone expected such a year to happen. People were in mass gatherings, unmasked and having fun but coronavirus wasn’t even a thing then, it was simply normal life. Fast forward 3 months to March 13th, the day where everyone's lives changed. Schools were cancelled for weeks then months and then we weren’t going back for the 2019-2020 school year. The rest of the year would be spent on Schoology and teams. Some of the hardest parts for some students was simply having to be proactive online and not get behind on school. During those times when school was online and at home, most places were closed. Grocery stores and essential stores were open but popular places like the mall and shopping plazas were like ghost towns. Store fronts were closed and even the whole toilet paper section at the grocery stores were bare. The whole nation was freaking out at this point.
Summer of 2020 was when things started to open up again. Many stores and restaurants started to open up gradually with occupancy limits and mandatory mask. Life started to feel semi-normal, but many people were still contracting the virus and the death numbers were going upward in the United States. The virus was taking the whole nation by a whirlwind. Unfortunately, things just got worse from there. Opening up stores and restaurants only happened to spread the virus even more and the numbers in the state were simply higher each day making each day a new record. People were traveling on vacation and the coronavirus was taking a huge toll on many lives.
A few months later, the fall was approaching, and many started to wonder what the year would look like. School was a question and the idea of having a whole election in the middle of a pandemic was somewhat a concern. Earlier in the year, the Olympics were postponed, and most big events were put to halt. The election was not postponed as most agreed that the election must still go on. School on the other hand, started off with one day a week. One day would at least have some form of a normal school schedule. It helps those who struggle with online to be in-person one day, to kind of get back in the swing. That was going pretty great until the color map that we followed started to turn yellow, then gold, and finally orange making school 100 percent online. School was back to being online for a while. Fall sports did continue to go on while we were in school and some got to finish their whole seasons from start to finish.
Then suddenly around the 9th week in school, we were in school for 2 days a week, and school started to feel even more normal. Unfortunately, the virus was still looming around schools, and many schools were shut down due to cases, but all schools took precautions to ensure the safety and most happened to be semi-corona free. School was different and at that point, Schoology happened to be engraved in the brains of students and teachers. Harrison County took a turn for the worse not too long after that, and the whole county went remote until 2021, making our school year semi-normal.
Some felt school was not as successful during a global pandemic, but many things were. The election still happened, and the pandemic still allowed all to vote with the option of mail-in ballots to ensure the safety of Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement became active, a vaccine for Covid was created and millions of people recovered from Covid. Many things weren't great in 2020. Life changing things happened, and we all got to see it in our lifetimes. 2020 was surely a year many want to leave this whole year in the past and focus on the good on 2021. 2020 may have been filled with pain and grief and life may have felt hopeless at times, but 2020 is over. Let’s focus on 2021 and the good that it will hopefully bring for all.
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