On March 12, while students sat in their fourth-period classes, loudspeakers proclaimed that La Salle would be closing for two weeks to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

At the time, no one could have foretold that campus would remain closed until the end of February the following year.

As March faded into April and April into May, and the 2020 school year ended and the 2021 school year began, the class of 2021 ended up missing out on events like senior year football games, homecoming, and pep rallies. 

“It feels like I’ve been robbed,” said senior Victoria Azar when describing her final year at La Salle.

Although La Salle’s closure was necessary due to the seriousness of the global pandemic, it caused many students across the nation to miss out on the majority of their infamous senior year. 

Many seniors feel like what they’ve missed out on the most this year is socializing and attending social events. 

“I feel like I’ve missed a lot of just regular high school socializing, and I’ve missed out on things such as dances and football games,” Azar said. “That’s been a really big bummer for me.”

In addition, many athletes are sad about missing out on a portion of their sports seasons. 

“I’ve been looking forward to [senior soccer season] since I was a freshman,” senior Ellen Dierckes said. Since, soccer has started back up again, but the season is far from normal. 

Because La Salle has recently started having in-person learning, hope has been gained among some for at least a few months of a normal senior year, but others have voiced concern.

Talking about the biggest challenge in making the return to school safe, senior Alex Fiedler said that the most difficult part is  “making sure everyone adheres to the rules.” 

“I know they’re going to be very stringent about it,” he said, “but it’s hard to determine whether everyone is actually going to be able to do the right things.”

As La Salle opens back up, some of the seniors’ wishes are to have a prom or real graduation. 

“I would want to be able to go to senior prom,” Azar said. “We didn’t have prom last year, and I didn’t get to go to prom as a sophomore. If we had a senior prom, that would be literally amazing.” 

Fiedler is hoping for “some kind of graduation,” as well. 

“[It] sounds kind of fun to do some kind of gathering where we could get together,” he said.

For some seniors at La Salle, the college application process is the most notable part of senior year.

“It was definitely interesting doing it completely away from school,” Dierckes said. “Overall I would say that my college application process went pretty smoothly given the circumstances.”

Fiedler wishes he started his college applications sooner. “I started kind of around late September, early October,” said Fiedler. “I wish I had started further back into the summer.” 

Senior Gavin Sunderland said that the college process “was totally different than I’d imagined it. I don’t remember how I imagined it in the first place, but I certainly didn’t imagine what it turned out to be.” 

La Salle organized the college application process in different ways this year as well with the hiring of counselor Ms. Alicia Magee and use of the website Scoir to assist seniors. 

Reflecting on his high school experience, Fiedler said, “Things have a way of kind of working out and then if you keep pushing forward, in the end, that’s the best thing you can do for yourself.”