Hey Raptors, this year has been hard for us all, especially the seniors. We all had high hopes for our last year of high school since we have been kids. “Senior year” is glorified in every high school movie or TV show as a time where kids can finally have fun and enjoy being young. Unfortunately, after the pandemic hit, a lot of these opportunities to have fun have been cancelled. Last week, our senior prom was cancelled after us not having a prom our junior year either. Opportunities to see my peers outside of the classroom before we leave for college in a few months are falling to an agonizing low-point. I personally, have enjoyed sitting in the recently re-done senior lounge this year and getting the chance to talk to people who aren’t in my classes. Unfortunately though, just a few hours after the news of the prom cancellation broke, the seniors got hit with another wave of bad news: no more senior lounge. What? When my friends and I heard the news, we began to worry: where will we eat lunch? Where will we work on Physics problems together during our free period time? Now, was this news innately incorrect? Kind of. Let me explain.

A faculty meeting took place last week where some faculty members expressed concern about the use of the senior lounge as they feel it is a place where COVID-19 can be spread. I completely understand this concern, but hear me out. The average classroom has over 20 students in it. In my AP Econ class I sit next to the wall less than 2 feet away from other students with a plexiglass shield facing on the side of me facing wall and not between me and the other students. In the lounge, however, we have much more space to spread out with many more seating options (as the lounge is bigger). The consensus between teachers on our use of the senior lounge is almost nonexistent. Some say we can’t go at all and some say that we can only go at lunch and some let us go as long as there are less than 10 people currently working in there.

During 90% of the day there are no problems with the capacity of the senior lounge. Usually just about 5 students are working in there at any given time all spread out 6 feet apart. The problem with the lounge that the teachers spoke of sometimes comes up at lunch. The usual people that sit in there at lunch add up to the number 11 or 12, which creates some awkward situations. One person is usually being asked to leave all of their friends who get to stay. At lunch, I agree we should be careful with the amount of people in there since we are eating but it is always a bit sad seeing one person leave all of their friends.

I hope that in the future I can continue to use the senior lounge to sit on the comfy couches when my back hurts from the school chairs or when I simply just want to get out of the classroom. I want to be able to work with administration to keep this privilege as it is one of the only ones we have left.