Being selected as a distinguished school is the highest award a public school can earn. Every year, only a select few are chosen for the award. And this year, Parks was one of them!

     Now, as we all know, this past year has been anything but normal, with the COVID-19 pandemic literally halting our daily lives for MONTHS. Although it’s looking like the pandemic is slowly starting to die down (due in main part because many people are now getting vaccinated), COVID-19 is still lingering after more than a year. Therefore, schools have still not been able to go back to how they were pre- COVID-19.

     Due to this pandemic, Principal Laura Makely and the entire Parks Junior High School staff were faced with many challenges. But they were able to overcome and work around them to give students the best possible school year they could get out of a year like this.

     Now, we know that distance learning and restricted in-person schooling was not as ideal or fun as regular in-person school would be, but there’s nothing that could be done about that. All that could be done by the staff was to make the best of it. That meant giving distance learning students great online Zoom classes, and giving in-person students as normal of an in-person school experience as they could. And due to this, many students achieved well in their classes. Even though a year like this was a lot more difficult, many students were able to achieve great grades, learn lots of new information, and make friends through “Zoomlandia” (as my Spanish teacher, Ms. Rocio Moreno, calls her Zoom students) or through hybrid. And as stated above, Principal Makely and the rest of the staff played a huge role in making that happen. Therefore, Parks Junior High was selected as a California Distinguished School. And deservedly so!

     On behalf of the Parks Panther Press, we would like to thank Mrs. Laura Makely, Mrs. Robin Mundschau and the entire staff at Parks Junior High School for their hard work and commitment this year. We really appreciate it!