Midyear Report

February 7, 2022

Hailey Christianson, Veritas Web Editor

As we come to the close of the first semester and enter the second, a lot has already happened in the first half of the year.  Even with the COVID pandemic still sticking around, that hasn’t stopped the students at Rockland High from their participation in events and activities for the school.  

In an interview with Dr. Harrison about how the school year has been going so far he says that the first half of the school year has been very good. “It’s been nice to see students more themselves.  It seems students are a lot happier this year, and that they’re benefiting from being in person every day. It seems that they are excited to be back and learning in their classrooms.”  

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, it has been a struggle for the adults involved in managing how to handle it, but also the students, not just in Rockland but in all schools, who have been affected the most.  They have had to make it through a pandemic while still trying to care about their education.  

COVID has affected everyone in different ways.  Throughout this year, the most that COVID has affected students at RHS is in student absences.  According to Dr. Harrison, this year student absences have been a lot higher than normal.  There have also been a lot more tardies lately.  The absences and tardies have been affecting students academically.  This has made it hard for people to go back to their everyday routines since before Covid.  

However, Dr. Harrison is most proud of the students’ resilience, the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.  Considering the Junior class at the moment, he explains that they have not had one normal year since coming to the high school.  They had ⅔ of their freshman year, a hybrid year sophomore year, and their junior year still being in masks.  Even freshmen, they all went from being in 7th grade to being in their first year of high school.  

Mr. Harrison said that looking at what the students have had to figure out for themselves and their own education, they have become more responsible for their own education, they have become more tech-savvy throughout the last couple of years, because they had to be.  

The best part of the year, most would agree, would be the Super Bowl.  In December, the Rockland Bulldogs football team went to Gillette Stadium to play in the Division 6 Championship Super Bowl game against Abington.  They, of course, won the game but other things that make it one of the best parts of the year was the community support, the number of people that attended, the funding that went in for 100 free tickets and a free fan bus. 

Another positive part of the year has been the athletic teams being able to play their schedules and games in front of fans.  While masks are required for indoor sports, all the players have spoken about the positive impact of having their friends and family attend their games.  Also, the drama and music departments have been able to perform for audiences and a school musical (Shrek) is being planned for March.  Similarly, the travel club will be going to Belize during February vacation and our own student government is hosting the spring conference for Southeastern Massachusetts student governments at Rockland High School on Feb. 17.

Since coming back from Christmas break, there has been an increase in Covid cases not just in the school but around the country.  However, Dr. Harrison is hoping that once we hit February vacation  everything will start to get better.  He is hoping that we can “emerge from this pandemic for good.”  

In the second half of the year, we will start with midterms and end with finals as well as MCAS.  We will have gone a full year without “disruptions” in our learning.  At the end of this year students should be, mostly, caught up with all their work and academics.  Dr. Harrison says, “The kids that are taking the AP biology exam are going to do well, they’re going to do very well.  Our kids that are taking MCAS are going to do excellent because I feel like we’ve given them a normal year of education.”  The most exciting part of the year not just for Dr. Harrison, but all teachers and students, are those benchmarks at the end of the year.  The AP exams, applying to college, going to college, and just the students preparing their future plans.

The first half of our 2021-2022 school year has been both crazy and exciting, but has seen a partial return to “normal.”  So we can only hope that the second half will be even better.

Charlie Kelleher and Julia Elie battle with East Bridgewater earlier in the year.