Having masks on anywhere people go has become a new norm in today’s society due to COVID. For almost three years now students had to wear masks and follow the other restrictions that came with the COVID pandemic. But now with the mask mandate lifted, Prep no longer requires students to wear masks, but students who want to still can.

“It has been 11 total days and 4 school days without masks as of 2/22/2022,” said Mr. Pituch, Vice President of Academics and Student Affairs.

There is nothing saying how long this will last, but people have liked it so far.

“We all certainly hope that masking requirements will not be back, but the internal numbers of COVID as well as the severity of any future variant will dictate that,” Mr. Pituch said. “The mandate put in place by the state was designed to be a precaution given what we knew at the time. Honestly, I was a little surprised that it was brought back for this school year. On a personal level, I am neutral to it. I get the idea behind it. For the most part, it was out of the control of administration. As soon as it was, we developed some internal metrics relatively quickly, so that was helpful. We have a really great administrative team at the school.”

“Personally, I love this new mandate because I hated having to wear the masks every day; it started to get annoying,” senior Caden Pustelak said. “I love it now because it feels like things are starting to get back to normal, which is all I’ve ever wanted.”

Switching from masks every day to no masks was weird but also refreshing.

“I think the past week was an interesting experience for everyone,” Mr. Pituch said. “A number of students as well as faculty and staff commented to me about how it felt like they were doing something wrong by not wearing a mask. This is just the latest wave of returning to normal in my view, which I think is welcomed by a majority of students and faculty/staff.”

“I speak for myself and probably the majority of this school when I say that having no masks is so nice but also makes me feel naked in a way because of how long we’ve been required to wear them,” senior Patrick Sullivan said.

The new masks optional policy has had mixed feelings, leaning more towards those who favor it. The community and Prep is starting to feel more and more normal day by day, which is a big boost to everyone’s morale in these trying times.

“I’m so glad that I can see my friends faces again and feel like the world is back to normal for once, senior Nick Lydic said. “Roll Ramblers!”