With the transition to actual in-school learning comes the necessary observance of health and safety guidelines, pertaining to social distancing and mask-wearing, by both teachers and students alike. However, whether students specifically will adhere to such precautionary measures is yet to be seen.

Schools across America are on the fence as to whether or not to enforce mask wearing. For example, students in North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia and the entire school district are simply encouraged to wear masks, not required (NBC). Such flippant policy puts the health and safety of at-risk individuals, both students and teacher, in danger. Other schools, such as Santa Margarita, are requiring students to wear masks and observe social distancing. However, students at SM do not have a great track record when it comes to recently implemented measures such as these.

During the 2017-2018 school year, the administration attempted to implement a lanyard system in which all students and teachers had to wear their ID cards around their necks for the sake of campus safety. The punishment for not wearing the lanyard for students was a detention. Although this was a good idea, many students did not follow the policy, and so the policy was abandoned. Simply put, it’s difficult to give detentions to what seemed to be about 95% of the student body.

The same disregard for safety guidelines could happen with mask wearing and social distancing at school. People have already demonstrated negligence for public health and safety measures by posting images on social media of them at large parties or social events without any precautions. This same behavior will carry over to school and put other students and teachers’ lives in danger.

The student’s response to safety precautions will mirror that of the nation’s response to COVID-19. At first, most will abide by the rules. However, as time goes on, people will get tired of following the restrictions and begin to relax here and there. Eventually, it’ll reach the point where students are utterly sick of wearing masks, and show an absolute disregard for any preventive measures.

That situation would only occur assuming SM does not get a case of COVID-19 by then. However, by observing the negative precedent as well as the current flippant nature of students on social media, mask wearing and social distancing will not last long. Punishment obviously hasn’t deterred students from not following measures implemented for the sake of the SM community’s safety and it won’t now.