With Covid-19 still rampant and keeping high school students in virtual school for the first nine weeks of the school year, current freshmen may be a little confused about what high school looks like. This year’s leadership class is working to make it easier for them. 

The leadership class, taught by Rebecca Bruning and Laura Bishop, have been taking current freshmen through a virtual orientation and in-person guided tours so there are not too many students in the school at one time. The virtual orientations occur twice a month, and the in-person tours happened the last three Thursdays of September and also on Oct. 2.

“There is a freshman orientation website where freshmen (but really any OHS student) can find answers to FAQs, links to resources and find out anything and everything about OHS,” said Mrs. Bruning. “There is also a welcome orientation video compiled by freshman ANP teachers to welcome the freshmen students to the building.” 

Aside from the website, the leadership class is going into the virtual ANP classes to answer any questions the students have and make them feel more comfortable coming to OHS.

“They push into those freshman ANP classes two times a month,” said Bruning. “The goal is that the freshmen are introduced to a caring upperclassmen that can be their go to for questions, support, or just feeling welcome at OHS. The lessons the leadership students are leading range from getting to know the freshmen, becoming more comfortable as an ANP team, and will eventually focus on more content like study skills, organizational skills, how to study for finals etc. to help transition the freshmen from middle school to high school expectations.”

The leadership class also offered optional, in-person tours of OHS.

“Coach Bishop and I are spearheading the freshman tours that happen on Thursday evenings,” said Bruning. “We check everyone in, take their temperature, COVID screen them and pair them up with a leadership student to start the tour. We’re also there to answer any parent or student question that can’t be answered by our leadership students, although the freshmen orientation website has a lot of great information on it, so there haven’t been that many questions.” 

This allows the students to learn more about OHS from the seniors leading the tours and ask any questions they may have about the school when they see it in-person. The tour groups were restricted to around 3 freshmen per leadership student, and the tours worked like any other freshmen tour. 

“Leading the tours is so much fun,” said leadership student JoJo Labrier (12). “I like going around the school with the freshmen and being able to help any way I can. Anything I can do to make the thought of starting high school a little less scary for them makes me super happy. We were all freshmen once and know how scary it is, so helping them anyway I can is awesome.”

With the help of the seniors, freshmen can come to OHS knowing where classes are, what the different floors look like, and have any questions they have answered.

“I feel confident coming to school now,” said Macy Judd (9), “and I know where I’m going.”

With students returning to school on Oct. 27, Bishop and Bruning plan on scheduling more tours before then for the freshmen who couldn’t attend the previous tours.