A regulated campus: the new norm for boarders

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Photo by Sage Ye

Residents of Warner enjoy a socially distant game of “Among Us.”

Sage Ye, Staff Writer

A new semester has almost come to a close at Lake Forest Academy. To say the least, things were— bizarre. With the presence of the COVID19 pandemic, almost the entire world went into lockdown, and many schools across the country turned to elearning. LFA, as a private boarding school, chose to open up the campus, but approached it with caution.

Lake Forest Academy has implemented new policies for their students. It includes the typical guidelines when it comes to the virus, such

as social distancing and wearing masks around other students. However, for the boarders, there are more sets of rules that were put in place.

Boarders have had to follow these guidelines after school days, as well as on the weekends. Recently, around late October, rules were put in place that restricted borders to go off campus. Van runs to go shopping and eat have been limited, and mostly delivered to campus. Students have been permitted to go into the common area of another dorm, but were refrained from going into rooms. The rooms themselves were limited to the capacity of one visitor from

that dorm, making the maximum capacity three people to a room. With the mental health of students taken into concern, the Academy has done everything that they could to help boarders stay active within these weeks. From open pools to socially distant movies, the campus has held virtually every activity within the parameters of the campus. With these new rules, life has taken a complete turn for the board ers. Kamal Nigmatullin, a junior who attends Lake Forest Academy and lives in Warner, commented, “It’s… like, hard to adjust to not being able to go outside, since for the past years we frequently go off campus during weekends.” He says, “Everyone is confined within an area, and since we can’t go (off campus), it feels different.” These procedures are new to many people, but to some, being away from home itself is a new experience, like freshman Warner resident Jason Xing. Xing said, “I don’t really know what to feel like; this is very new to me.” Many freshmen and new students like him have never known what it is like to live on a campus free of pandemic restrictions. While some students expressed their objections with the new rules, stating that they were too strict or confining, Ted Golota, mathematics teacher and dorm parent, ex

plained everything that he could about these new rules. “They can’t be changed as of now. It has been decided, you know, that we can’t have kids going on and off campus,” he states, “We don’t know who they will be in contact with, and it’s way too big of a risk.”

Despite discontent being shown from some, there were still a large number of students who got behind these new rules with their support. Matthew Arpas, a senior resident in Atlas, said, “I believe the school has done a great job in handling the virus, we are limited to one guest per room, and day students aren’t allowed. We also wear masks in the commons, so at all times we are protected.”

“I genuinely appreciate all the effort dorm faculty put into making sure we had a good time,” said Rachel Johns, who is a Proctor of Ferry Hall this year. “It’s been a very hard semester for boarding students and dorm faculty so I appreciate everyone’s dedication to our community’s safety, well being, and entertainment.” Going into next semester, board ers should expect similar rules to be put in place. However, with a bit of optimism, since the vaccine has progressed far enough, we can all hope for this pandemic to be over by the end of the semester.