Des Moines Register
For students in Iowa, it s not just masks and online classes that have changed school during the COVID-19 pandemic. In an instant, you could have all these activities taken away, you could have your school taken away (the pandemic) just made me value a lot of the little things that I d never even thought of before, said Sky Weber, a senior in the Keota Community School District. Even just going and eating lunch with my friends, or going and watching a movie in a movie theater, it made me value those things so much more.
The half a million students in Iowa have all experienced a different version of school from the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the changes go beyond differences in how classes are conducted: High school activities such as band, sports and talking with friends at lunchtime have been turned on their heads. And the students have noticed.