Since March of 2020, the Amador community — along with the entire world — has been on lockdown because of the pandemic. Not only has the pandemic brought very big changes to the 2020-2021 school year, but it also affected the last few months of the 2019-2020 school year in the same ways. Now that this school year has flown by and is already coming to an end, students and teachers across campus are looking forward to summer break, as well as asking themselves one question: what will the 2021-2022 school year look like?

Nothing is for certain at the moment, but it seems that going back to the usual full time schedule is the goal for next year. It also seems that PUSD is listening to inputs and suggestions from students too, as on May 12th, they held a meeting to collect student input on how they think next school year should work. 

“I would like for us to return to our modified block schedule, which is the schedule we had prior to the onset of the pandemic. I can’t think of anything that I would necessarily want to change; I’m confident that when we return to normal it will be with a newfound appreciation for everything that we’ve had to do without over these past 14 months,” said Mr. Kelly, AP Statistics and Algebra II teacher.

A normal 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. school day is most likely along the lines of what next school year will look like, but some Amador students and teachers have come to appreciate the shorter days and periods of our odd 2020-2021 experience. While it is nice to have shorter days and periods, it doesn’t work for everyone and sometimes there is not enough time in one class period, and it’s better to have too much time than too little. It is very unlikely that class periods will return in a shorter time span, but it would be a welcome change by most of the Amador campus if they did.

“I am a fan of block schedules, but I also think there is something to being able to reconstruct how our days are moving forward, post-COVID. I think there could be a way to find a happy middle ground. Do I think there were enough contact minutes with students this year? Absolutely not! But do I think we need to go back into our old ways? Nope! I think we could find a way where students have slightly more work to do asynchronously than we did in past traditional years and lessen the in class time slightly,” said Mrs. Heller, an ASL teacher on the Amador campus.

Overall, the thought of returning to school in person next year is very exciting, whether it is still a little different than what the routine was before the pandemic or not. More likely than not, the students and teachers on Amador campus over remote learning can’t wait to return and finally have something to do outside of the house everyday.

“I think that the collaboration time, which has historically been in the mornings, should stay in the morning on Wednesdays.  Having it in the afternoon will affect clubs and sports teams that have teachers as coaches because they will be held up for an additional hour at the end of the day. I think students do benefit from having one morning a week with a later start.  I think staff are also more engaged in morning collaboration versus afternoon collaboration. That was a change this year that I am really hopeful will change back,” said Heller.