Mr. Dennis Harris is the cross country coach,  a History, and personal finance teacher at Arlington High. He has been teaching for 15 years and this year in particular has been like no other. There’s been many adaptations that have been made to feel normal at school. This year has gone a lot smoother for him than he thought it would go. Though it has all been crazy, he expected more issues than what has occurred so far. He also anticipated going to full virtual at some point. Luckily, that has not happened. The teachers had time to get ready for the school year but, there would never be enough time to prepare for the unknown. All of his students he believes have adapted very well to the new schedule format. The big challenge for coach Harris is trying to fit all the learning standards in with a shorter amount of time. Hopefully, the combination of in person with virtual learning days will allow the students to learn as well as the previous years.

Something Coach Harris thinks the students could do that would be helpful for them and their teachers is making better use of our virtual days and getting things turned in when we should. The first two quarters went really well for him, and everything seemed to play itself out and end up working.

He doesn’t get to see his students as much so its affected his teaching so he’s had to be relying more on online materials to fill in the gaps. Through all of this chaotic energy Arlington has done a good job working through all the hard times. Now there may be some downfall to the COVID-19 but it has put kids in a place where we have to be more independent and disciplined, and in college that is a major thing to learn. Coach Harris hopes the virtual days will teach some kids how to be more disciplined on their own and get their work done. He and his students, well adapted to the schedule, actually like coming twice a week to all seven classes. That’s not our usual schedule at Arlington High, but in order to stay open half way and let the students and staff enjoy what they can get we have to do some things we have never done before. We’re hoping for the rest of this year to be safe and fun for the whole school, and we really don’t want to have to close the schools. With everyone working together wearing our mask, and following the rules we may be able to finish out this year strong without COVID bringing us down. Coach Harris is helping kids everyday learn through such a hard time, he’s had to make changes himself but he is glad our school is still up and running.