The Role of Day Students in COVID
By Jack Gordon
Until recently, boarders were not allowed to leave campus and enter town, even after this change was suggested and promised, due to the risk of interacting with people outside of our school “bubble.” Day students are expected to follow similar protocols. However, these rules are flaunted by day students, many of whom post pictures on social media of them eating in town or engaging in some other activity that the school has deemed unsafe. Seemingly no repercussions have come from these very blatant offenses, indicating a lack of regard for this by the school. The Academy needs to bridge the gap between the enforcement of COVID policies for day students and boarding students.
Day students are the clear hole in the “bubble” that the school has attempted to build. While boarding students have been closely supervised and restricted, day students have not been held to the same level of accountability and have taken advantage of this freedom. As seen in the recent outbreak, a lack of enforcement has serious consequences that endanger the larger Exeter community and could potentially result in the closure of campus as a whole.
While it is impossible to ensure that the COVID environment is error-proof, the lack of consistency is glaring. Day students and boarding students should enjoy the same levels of restrictions, with the obvious addition of the former going home at night. This means that the school has two options. The first is relaxing the restrictions on boarding students to the standards that day students are currently held to. Some of these changes could include decreased enforcement of social distancing guidelines, especially within dorm pods, and sanctioned visits from family members. Both of these changes are possible and would help to equalize the restrictions that day and boarding students face. Since day students are allowed to go home and interact with their families every night, who may or may not be entirely following the school’s COVID protocols (masks, social distancing, testing, etc.), boarding students should be granted the same privilege. However, we can assume that with the upcoming end of school year and graduation, the administration will be hesitant to relax their policies. The only option then would be to more strictly enforce the preexisting restrictions on day students.
The issue regarding day students does not lie so much in the rules as the application. The school has made it clear to day students that they are not allowed to interact with those outside of the Academy except for their immediate families. While this still is not perfect, as other members of the family may not be adequately testing, mask-wearing and social distancing, it is the closest that the school can get. It is unrealistic to ask the families of day students to quarantine, as the parents may need to go to work and siblings may have to attend school. Day students are also testing on a similar schedule to boarding students, which will help to identify and contain any potential outbreaks. Yet these policies only work when they are enforced. So far, the school has done a poor job of making sure that students are abiding by the guidelines, even when proof of the violations was obvious. The school should make the punishments clear for breaking COVID violations and take a more active role in monitoring the movement of day students. When people are openly flouting the rules on social media, the school cannot ignore this, but must instead issue a clear rebuke with consequences. With just one response, the Academy would set a precedent that would be noted and respected by all students.
