Students at University High School have varying opinions on returning to school amidst the ongoing pandemic.

UHS students who selected the hybrid model returned to campus on September 24th, after over a month of fully distanced learning. The hybrid model entails students going to school two days a week, either on Tuesdays and Thursdays for Cohort A, or Wednesdays and Fridays for Cohort B. New safety measures such as a mandatory mask policy, wiping down tables and chairs before each class, and hand sanitizer stations have been implemented.

The district has also launched a COVID-19 dashboard for the IUSD community in order to provide accurate and transparent information of recent cases. If a positive case were to occur, IUSD ensured that school communities would be notified immediately by their respective administration.

Some students, such as sophomore Kuan Fu, prefer having classes in-person.

“I prefer hybrid over online because doing things in person makes things easier to understand,” Fu said.

Junior Eric Choi agrees with Fu and feels safe with IUSD’s new safety policies and Covid-19 dashboard.

“I am satisfied with how [in-person] school is going right now and I think IUSD is handling COVID issues skillfully,” Choi said. 

Others, such as junior Karim Galal, prefer distance learning over the hybrid model.

“Personally, I would rather engage in fully distanced learning. After experiencing both methods, I noticed that there wasn’t much of a benefit to the in-person method [because] with social distancing and barely being able to hear each other through our masks, not much changes,” Galal said. “I, for the most part, do feel safe. [However,] that small level of uncertainty that I feel isn’t worth being risked at the expense of a learning model that is not even better than the online option.” 

Junior Hunter King agrees with Galal’s views and believes that returning to campus is not worth the risk of transmission. “I would 100 percent say full distance is better,” King said. “IUSD [is doing] a good job of keeping everybody safe but they can’t prevent all contact [with the virus], which is the problem.”