In the recent return to school in the past few weeks, students are now able to do what a normal year would like, including the return assemblies, differently this year due to COVID-19. With the new guidelines in place, outdoor assemblies have become the go to option for the school. With this, Students of Tampa Prep have very mixed opinions about this new assembly method after the past two weeks of school. With the choice of going back to school full time, the administration had to make some very difficult decisions on what the students and faculty could go back to doing normally. One of these main decisions came as to where to do the school’s assemblies. The choice came down to outside on the field with the seniors sitting in the middle by advising and the grades distributed on either side of the seniors. 

   As the first outdoor assembly took place the first week of school, many students had both good and bad feedback from the students. Senior, Roger Haughey, is entering his seventh year at Prep and has had his fair share of school traditions. Coming back from the COVID-19 separation. Haughey was ready to get back to normal.

    “I thought everything was finally back, just having to wear masks didn’t seem that bad but I was ready for my normal Senior year” said Haughey. 

Opposing this normalcy came the change in our highschool assemblies.

   “It’s so uncomfortable and hot, I don’t get why we have to sit out here. Half of the people on the field aren’t even listening” Haughey said.

   With the agreement of these statements by a large amount of Tampa Prep’s community, we as the students leave it to Carl Carlson and Kevin Plummer to keep us safe but move back to the normal, inside the gym on bleachers, assemblies.