The Story
BHS has officially been declared as having an outbreak by DHHS. Whoops.
Why?
We’ve had over 40 cases and multiple classroom clusters – meaning three or more students in one class test positive. And unlike the elementary schools, where the students are with the same kids all day, students at the high school move around. A lot.
So what now?
We have to mask up for 14 days. Shocking, right? Our current masking sentence goes through Tuesday, October 5th, but since we’ve had more clusters declared since the outbreak, it’s entirely possible (and probably likely) that we’ll stay masked for longer.
Runaway-How: How to Wear a Mask
Cover your mouth and nose. It’s that easy. Masks are required indoors and on buses (still), but not when eating lunch in the Commons.
And what if you don’t?
Simple – you get sent home. No warning, no strikes, just sent to the office and sent home. Now, one might think that kids want to get home from school (“yay we don’t have to do anything today!”), but missing a day of school can be pretty detrimental to the gradebook. One missing assignment that goes in as a zero can tank your grade, especially this early in the year with so few grades in PowerSchool.
What about extracurriculars?
Masks are required for all indoor before and after school activities. Athletes don’t need to wear masks while playing outside, but they should try to distance themselves. Visitors and spectators to indoor sports also need to wear a mask. Maybe Jozokos will bring back his Darth Vader mask.
Is there any hope?
Quite honestly, we’re not sure. Even though everyone is wearing masks now, we still have new cases on the daily, and several more classroom clusters have been identified. We suggest you get used to wearing a mask again. On the bright side, it’ll cover that pimple!
The Runaway
Masks are officially back in fashion… yay.
What to Say…
When a sniffle is in the air…
It’s officially fall. Yup. Sorry to all those beach babes out there, but soon we will be trudging through the snow going uphill both ways to get to school. And with the colder weather, diseases are arriving. That’s right, it’s not just COVID you have to worry about now, but also those common sniffles, stomach bugs, and coughs that are circulating. You may have noticed a few kids hacking in the bathrooms, or stepping into the hall during class to blow their noses in the last week. There are certainly a few viruses going around. This is just a friendly reminder from your pals at RBD to stay home if you have covid like symptoms even with a negative test result. If you pass those symptoms on to someone, now they also have to get tested, because they have no way to know if it’s covid or not. We know missing school sucks, but we also don’t want to get sick so please stay home, keep washing your hands, and wearing your masks.
When you need school activity hours…
During advisory B on Wednesday, there was a club fair for all of the students to see the clubs that are offered at BHS. A whole bunch of representatives from different clubs piled into the cafe and the gym with informational booths about their clubs for other students to peruse. Some of those clubs are National History Day, Leadership, LARP, Armored Combat, Life of A Bulldog, MUN, GSA, DECA, and many more. In order to get students to join a club, members put out candy for people who show interest in joining, creating a large handful of students who have perfected feigning interest. During the fair, there were quite a large number of kids crowding the Armored combat and LARP stations, to join or to watch people hit each other with plastic swords, We guess we’ll never know. Either way, LARP club never fails to amuse people.
When you’re feeling Devious…
The Devious Licks challenge on Tik Tok has caused quite a stink over the past few weeks. In case you haven’t noticed the lack of soap dispensers in the bathrooms, we’ll break it down for you. As most of you may know, this trend involves “licks” of items from school bathrooms and posting them on your social media platform of choice. For the parents out there, “licks” is just slang for stealing items. Early last week, Mr. Jozokos sent out a video to be played about the negative effects of this trend and the effect it has had on the school. At BHS and Lurgio, soap dispensers have been swiped and other parts of the bathroom destroyed, much to the dismay of germaphobes and maintenance staff alike. If headway on this issue stalls, we could potentially be plunged into another era of needing your ID to enter the bathroom. At the end of the day, using the school bathroom is already traumatic enough, so please don’t make it worse by stealing a sink.
Things to Know
The bells are wrong!
BHS is following a different schedule today to accommodate the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
You thought you escaped…
Boys soccer still has yet to score a goal this season. We guess their game strategy isn’t very goal-oriented. They might want to look into that…