#second issue

Illustration by Rachel Sy

By Ina Sugay and Karissa Cruz

Welcome to 2022, Ward! We hope you’ve had a restful winter break and that the end of this first semester has been successful. We’re excited to announce that we will be going forward with releasing a physical copy of our second issue this March. In the meantime though - continue to check out the Mary Ward Planet Blog for exciting articles and posts.

A new variant called omicron was first identified in South Africa and has made its way around the world. Although the effects of omicron on someone are less severe than the Delta variant, it can be transmitted between people much more easily. Over the winter break, COVID-19 cases have increased drastically because of this variant. There have been more omicron cases in Canada than in all of 2020. This has caused major impacts on families, businesses, schools and society as a whole. It felt like the beginning of this pandemic was repeating itself.

As a result of this unprecedented rise in Omicron cases, the amount of uncertainty between students and teachers has drastically increased. The new rules and regulations implemented by the government have caused a great deal of controversy among school boards across the province. The previous obligation of school officials to report COVID cases has been ruled out, as well as the requirement to count the number of cases within the building. However, some school boards have continued to request that families of students report their cases of COVID-19 if they were to come in contact with the virus. More specifically, TCDSB is still going to let students know if they’ve come into contact with someone who has COVID-19 if the person chooses to report it. With these changes in restrictions and concerning rise in cases, the Ford government decided to move forward with in-person learning on January 5th, 2022.However, due to an overwhelming amount of complaints from students and teachers, in-person learning was postponed until January 17th. Flash forward to January 16 when yet another change was announced regarding the return date. January 17 and 18 marked the biggest winter storm in Ontario after several years! These two additional snow days resulted in students having to learn from home for an extended period of time. With students returning to school to take their final exams and submit their culminating projects after an additional two weeks learning online, the questions surrounding the state of self-directed learning in semester two start to become more prominent than ever. The return to Mary Ward’s unique system has yet to be confirmed.

The Mary Ward Planet hasn’t produced a physical paper since March 2020 so our upcoming issue is something to look forward to. It will include an editorial on self-directed learning during a pandemic and updates on a potential omicron vaccine. There will also be tips for the start of a new semester and ways to efficiently study for exams. Besides these major topics, there will be lots of entertaining news. For example, the Oscars and the invention of lickable screens. Our team is eager to provide our school community with this content through an actual newspaper.

The winner of our raffle for a portrait painting of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters 2, Miss Caryn Gilliland of Hazel Park, Michigan!

Front & Back Covers of Content Abnormal #2:

Inside Front Cover + Table Of Contents: