LOS ALAMITOS, CA — Exactly four years ago, Friday, March 13, 2020, Los Alamitos Unified School District entered a COVID-19 lockdown. The district announced that students would not return to school for two weeks. Two weeks turned into three, which turned into four, and we all know what happened next. We entered a world of masks, social distancing, and toilet paper shortages.

For the rest of the 2020 school year, LAUSD students attended school virtually through Zooms and Google Meets. The next school year, students had the option of returning to school on a hybrid schedule, with four half-days in-person and one asynchronous.

This week, we interviewed Griffins about their pandemic experiences: Mr. Moy, Erica Holmes, and Jada Gaither shared their COVID stories.

Mr. Moy and the ‘rescheduled’ vacation

Mr. Moy is a Los Alamitos High School AP World History and Skills Lab teacher and assistant coach for the boys’ varsity basketball team. The following interview with Mr. Moy was edited and condensed.

Question: Describe what March 13, 2020 was like for you.

Answer: I remember being at Los Alamitos High School as an intervention teacher, and we had a staff meeting about transferring over to the online mode of learning. I remember certain teachers who had rarely used technology in the classroom having to scramble and work really hard to change how they had previously taught.

Q: What were some of the toughest transitions you experienced?

A: The toughest personal challenge was finding a job. I was not a full-time teacher in 2020, and trying to get hired was very challenging because some schools were staying online for the next school year, some were like Los Al and doing a hybrid method, and others were completely back to school.

Other challenges included having to not see family and friends, getting COVID, and having to isolate myself for a week.

Q: What was your experience like coming back to school and transitioning back into normal life?

A: Coming back to school was different for me because I did not get a full-time job over the summer and was a long-term substitute for a teacher at Los Al. It was a lot of trial and error making sure people were staying consistent in their learning both in-person and online. Having students in my class, while also having to stream Google Meets was a challenge because I was wearing a mask as well as a microphone. Staying up to date with all the changes was complicated at times too, but I’m glad we took the appropriate steps to keep everyone safe.

Erica Holmes and the inconvenience stores

Students had to leave their friends at school and turn to a different way of accomplishing schoolwork, completely digitally. Erica Holmes, a freshman and a lacrosse player at Los Al, shared how the quarantine affected both her daily life and her education.

“I heard that we were going to go on a short, couple weeks break from school,” Holmes said. “I knew that everyone was going to be excited.”

This was a relatable feeling for many Los Al students: excitement at the prospect of a break. If only students were aware of just how isolated they were going to be!

Many Griffins agreed that virtual school was a huge shift from our traditional school environment. At the beginning of this new way of learning, students weren’t necessarily required to show up on all of the Google Meet and Zoom calls, but later, students had to learn to limit their outside distractions and tune into their screens.

As Holmes said, stores also experienced shortages, toilet paper being one of the main products continuously in demand as people hoarded products in preparation for the pandemic.

“After COVID, it was difficult getting back into the way things work in general and at school because of the health rules that were in place,” Holmes said. “Things like staying six feet apart and having to wear a mask were a struggle, but being around people again was a great feeling.”

Jada Gaither and the two-week turned six-month break

Los Al senior Jada Gaither was in eighth grade at McAuliffe Middle School on March 13, 2020, and the one word she used to describe that day was “inconsistent.” She remembers hearing a rumor that the district was going on a two-week break. Little did she know that students wouldn’t return until the next school year.

However, Gaither said that she initially felt happy because she didn’t want to go back to school and had always wanted to be homeschooled.

“I do remember thinking I’d be stuck in eighth grade forever because I didn’t know we were going to online school yet,” Gaither said.

Gaither enjoyed how asynchronous learning allowed her to sleep in more, but she recalled with embarrassment the “day in my life” YouTube videos she filmed while stuck at home. Other Los Al students also took up vlogging as a pastime during quarantine, as a creative outlet and cure for perpetual boredom.

“I look at them now and they are actually so cringy,” Gaither said. “I also did the POVs on my Instagram reels because I didn’t have TikTok at this time.”

Returning to school in person was hard, Gaither said, because quarantining made her a little anti-social. She said that the people she talked to eventually moved because their families were in the military.

“I sat by myself from time to time. It really helped when I joined choir because they were such a welcoming environment, and as soon as I talked to them, I felt at home,” Gaither said. She is currently a member of Sound FX choir at Los Al.

Stay tuned for “COVID reflections part two” to read more students’ stories of March 13, 2020.