Winters Express, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 — C1
Class of 2023 students head toward next journey with resilience, dedication By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer
EXPRESS
When 2022 ended, many of us simply stacked it onto an ever-rising series of years that we’ve retrospectively looked back on and described as “hard” or “difficult. For the Class of 2023, their entire high school experience was made up of those kinds of years, beginning with their freshman year being drastically upended in March 2020. But for Winters High School counselor Marcella Heredia, this cohort cannot — and should not — be defined only by the hardships they endured. “I know that for years to come when we look back and reflect on a graduating class, we’ll probably automatically think of something COVID-related and look at what year of their schooling was impacted,” Heredia said. “But, I think it’s important to look at all the other stuff the classes have experienced besides COVID. “Don’t get me wrong, COVID was a drag, but we got some pretty resilient students in our district that bounce back like no other,” Heredia continued. Heredia said she hopes this class can take away more from their experience than just the difficult parts, but the importance of resilience and dedica-
WHS graduates of 2023 toss their mortar boards into the moonlit sky. Crystal Apilado/ Winters Express
tion in the face of those difficulties. “I think that the class of 2023 leaves Winters High School with some good life lessons,” Heredia said. A key lesson Heredia stressed was the importance of embracing change, transitions and farewells, as while at WHS “they said welcome and goodbye to 17 different teachers.” “While 17 seems like a lot of teachers coming and going over four years at Winters High School, I think it’s a good lesson,” Heredia noted, “They will be say-
ing welcome and goodbye to future teachers and coworkers for the rest of their lives-I think it’s something we never really think of unless we really have to.” But along with endings, there are beginnings. According to Heredia, this cohort of students “was also able to share some big moments with the staff of Winters High School” including being able to congratulate teachers and welcome their new babies and teachers getting married. Heredia also noted that
“the class of 2023 got to see the inclusion of a full-time on-site mental health clinician from RISE available to them on campus Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.” The ink of the past is dry the moment it’s written, and sometimes in life, we find ourselves forced to walk down paths we couldn’t avoid, and it can make us feel helpless and demoralized. The Class of 2023, like all of us, could neither predict nor stop the COVID-19 pandemic from inexorably altering
their lives. But they didn’t let it, or anything else, stop them from keeping their heads up and seeing their high school experience through with more strength than could have been expected of them, returning to school in March 2021 and finishing out the next two years to get to this point. As Heredia described, the class of 2023 proved to themselves and to the community that “our lives as we know it can practically be put on pause for nearly a year, but that we do bounce back.”