By Vanessa Leung ‘25
As announced recently, St. Mark’s has moved from COVID-19 yellow phase back to green- the result of a positive COVID case of an adult in the school community. This heightened awareness of following precaution protocols raises questions around the possibility of seated lunch.
Although there are staggered lunch schedules and chapel in the 1945 Hall in order to prevent the risk of spreading the virus, the circumstances of the school fortunately have not been serious enough to reach the point where people have to be assigned seating while attending lunch or chapel.
Staggered lunch schedules however, have been created where lunch time for the student body has been separated into two groups to lower the number of unmasked students and faculty in an indoor place. Students with different classes around lunch period have been placed in Blocks A or B and eat at lunch B or A. While it does decrease the risk in an indoor environment, the schedule has been really frustrating for students. In addition to memorizing the color block schedule, students also have to remember their periods of having lunch, which is critical if the student does not want to miss class because of eating lunch at the wrong period. In addition many students aren’t able to sit with their friends who might be in different classes,
Chapel however, as heard from many of the returning students, in the ‘45 Hall turned out to be better than before when they had morning and evening chapel in St. Mark’s actual chapel. Since St. Mark’s chapel did not meet the COVID-19 air ventilation requirements, the class of 45 hall was chosen as the replacement for real Chapel temporarily. Many returning students stated that chapel space in the ‘45 Hall was less crowded and the seating was not as cramped as before. The ‘45 hall provides more comfortable, wide seats with cushioning which is much more enjoyable to be seated in. Freshman and new sophomores however will sadly not get to experience the feeling of real chapel for now. Chapel in the 45 Hall is not seated; instead students will sit in groups according to their forms.
While most are still not sure what a seated meal will be like, it will mostly be students sitting on assigned seating evenly spaced out to diminish the contact with one another. This protocol will probably be initiated if circumstances worsen such as multiple positive COVID cases in the community. If seated lunch is going to occur then the staggered lunch schedule will definitely continue, and chapel will likely be cancelled.
With the help of maintaining safety protocols such as having masks on while indoors , the St. Mark’s community will hopefully soon return back to Green phase, and seated lunch and chapel will never happen.
