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TAYLORSVILLE — Students across Utah, especially high school seniors, expressed disappointment after the state’s soft closure of K-12 public schools was extended through the end of the academic year.
There have been a few more conversations inside the Hasler’s Taylorsville living room lately.
With schools closed, living rooms have become study halls. Parents are now teachers.
Whitney Hasler has five children in second through 10th grade and another child in college.
She’s now trying her best to help her children with their schoolwork.
“She had math questions last night,” said Whitney Hasler while looking at her eighth-grade daughter. “I did calculus, but that was a lot of years ago. There’s no way that I could sit down and help with math.”
However, the reason for sitting down as a family Tuesday afternoon in front of their living room television wasn’t to talk.
It was to listen.
Governor Gary Herbert was holding a news conference and was expected to make an announcement about the rest of the school year.
A few minutes after starting to speak, he made it official; classes would be canceled for the remainder of the school year.
All of it would have to be done online.
“Even though we expected it, it’s still, it’s almost like you experience the loss over and over again,” said Whitney Hasler. “The first time, it was like, two weeks. Okay, we can get through two weeks. Then it was the end of April, then it was like okay we can do the end of April. Now, it’s for the year.”
Her eighth-grade daughter, Matisse, started crying when the governor made the announcement.
“I just want to see my friends. It’s just so hard because we text and we call every day, but we just want to see each other in person and we can’t,” said Matisse Hasler.
For many students, school is more than books.
“At least it’s not our last year at the middle school and so we all get to be together again next year,” said Matisse Hasler.
However, for seniors, this is it.
Memories that should’ve happened for the class of 2020 were stolen by a virus no one will forget.
“The academic stuff is one thing, but really they just, they miss their friends,” said Whitney Hasler. “They miss seeing their peers, they miss seeing their teachers.”
UTAH’S CLASS OF 2020: We want to help celebrate you and your amazing achievement of graduating from high school. Click here to submit photos with your name and the name of your school for a digital senior yearbook for Utah’s Class of 2020.
