Students across Alberta have seen the rest of their school year drastically altered by COVID-19.
Last Sunday night, Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced all K-12 classes across Alberta would be cancelled until further notice.
This week, students were able to make a stop back into their schools, in an organized fashion while practising social distancing, to clean out their lockers and retrieve their belongings.
Emma Van Brabant, a Grade 12 student attending Morinville Community High School, said ending the school year early is weird and the reality of the situation is still sinking in.
“Now it just feels like an extra long break. But I'm sure as time goes on, it will get more and more ... real.”
Once it settles in, it will eventually start to feel like they are missing out, Van Brabant said.
“It’s already been difficult for me thinking forward. I may never get to see all my classmates again. I don't fully have a graduation at this point,” Van Brabant said.
“It's been pretty difficult to kind of grasp the reality of the situation.”
When the news was announced Sunday, Van Brabant said she was pretty surprised.
“I didn't really believe that they were going close down all the schools for like the rest of the year indefinitely,” Van Brabant said.
The student said it didn’t really feel like it was going to impact their school year because living in Canada, the virus still seemed so far away in Europe and Asia.
Van Brabant plans on going to university next year to study environmental engineering and she’s already been accepted to several schools, so she isn’t too worried about how this school year will impact her transition to university.
But she said other students might be pretty concerned about the transition.
Dylan McMow, a Grade 9 student at Sir George Simpson, also didn’t expect school to be cancelled, especially on such short notice.
At first, McMow said he was kind of excited the school year was cancelled.
“Over time, it got to ... now I’m just bored,” McMow said.
The teen has spent the last week hanging out with his family, watching Netflix and YouTube and playing video games.
McMow said he already misses his friends and some of his teachers. He has been chatting with his friends through the phone but hasn’t seen anyone in person since classes were cancelled.
When McMow likely goes back to school in the fall, he will be attending a different school for high school.
“I wasn't expecting school to just end that day ... I thought I was going to go to school Monday but apparently just school stopped.”
The province expects online classes to launch sometime soon for all students across Alberta.
