Students, teachers adjust to missed class time after Hurricane Ida
Hurricane Ida was devastating and had a severe impact on Louisiana at the end of August. St. Martin’s was able and ready to get back in the swing of things and get back to school two weeks after the hurricane.
After the school year began, there was only one full week of school before Hurricane Ida made landfall and hit most of lower Louisiana.
Students who had just started their first year at St. Martin’s felt a source of nervousness coming back to school after the two-week break.
Savannah Westacott is a freshman who had just started her first year at St. Martin’s when Ida interrupted the school year.
“As a new student, I felt a little bit awkward and out of place,” Westacott said. “It almost felt as if we were doing the first week of school over again.”
Freshman Hailey Hopwood, who is also new to the school, described the difficulty of readjusting after the interruption to the school year.
“It felt like I was starting over again,” Hopwood said. “It was very nerve-racking.”
Another challenge was that teachers are behind on their curriculum. As the first quarter came to an end, teachers had to make up for two missed weeks of school.
Mary Quinet, a history teacher, said there was a challenge trying to pick back up from where her classes left off before the storm.
“What I have done is to go back and kind of review a little bit and try to tie together what I’m teaching with what we had already done, so that it's a continuous thread,” Quinet said.
In order to get back on track, students were still expected to stay focused on their work even with this setback. Luckily, this hurricane break did not severely affect the academics, and teachers are not too worried about being two weeks behind, according to Cissy Rowley, French teacher.
“I think it will take a little longer for us to get back into the routine of school, but I think we will get there,” Rowley said.
According to Quinet, the school is a community and has a source of passion that drives the faculty and students, even after a hurricane.
“St. Martin’s has always been a team environment with the faculty, the administration, and the students,” Quinet said. “I know we can do this. A lot of schools don’t have that kind of chemistry, but we do.”