On Nov. 9, the board of education had a meeting to discuss when, if and how we would be going back to school this second nine weeks. After two and a half hours of discussion and three failed motions, the final motion was made to stay full remote for secondary schools and the blended model for the elementary schools.

I think that this decision is stupid.

It should be up to the individual family, not the board, on where the students learn. If the board had decided to send us all back in person, there would still be some families who would rather stay home. And they have that option.

Board member Stan Reeser questioned whether “holding off on sending them back until January as opposed to sending them back on Nov. 12 is making it worse or better,” and “how much damage are [board members] doing?” by constantly changing their minds.

“Just because the county numbers go up doesn’t mean the school numbers will,” board member Ernestine Krehbiel said during the meeting. With the county numbers differing from the school building numbers, it is hard to tell whether going back will be safe or not. I don’t need to know the numbers in the jails if I’m not going to be attending school in the jails. If everyone wears their masks, washes their hands and stays socially distant we would be safe. Major bonus: many students would be happier.

With the board changing their mind every meeting that they have, it’s really starting to give me whiplash. It’s back and forth between going or not going and I’m tired of it. They should have just stuck with the plan that they came up with for us to have returned on November 12th with the two groups going two days a week. I liked that plan. I would rather have been going back two days out of the week than none at all. I hate being online, staying at home all day by myself, not interacting with other people. It sucks. And I’m not the only student who feels this way. When we polled the students of Southeast, of the 924 students that answered, 541 would have rather been in person than online.