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HEBRON, Ky. - Governor Andy Beshear announced in his daily news conference Thursday that Kentucky schools will not reopen until at least May 1, leaving many wondering if classes will resume at all for the 2019-2020 schoolyear.
When they left school weeks ago, most students assumed they’d be back in no time. Now, they said they’re not so sure.
“No one would have thought of this happening,” Connor High School Senior Alex Borman said.
Borman has been playing baseball since he was 4 years old.
“My brother has also been a graduate from Conner,” Borman said. “He’s an alumni. It’s kind of like a family tradition.”
He was rounding third and heading for home on his high school career when COVID-19 stopped everything in its tracks.
“I’m interested in playing baseball in college and this really affects it because this year is like the year that in baseball college scouts will look at you and it kind of just ruins the whole thing,” Borman said.
Fellow Conner student Ethan Schneider said he’s also disappointed.
“It’s just been kind of crazy, completely thrown for a loop,” Schneider said.
He said his hopes of returning to class, sports and jazz band are quickly fading away.
“As of right now, I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Schneider said.
He said it’s especially challenging because of his course load.
“It’s definitely been tough to adjust to because I’m taking three AP classes and switching that workload to online is definitely difficult because I feel like a lot of the learning experience comes from the interaction, the person-to-person presentations,” Schneider said.
He currently has a full-ride scholarship to study biomedical engineering at the University of Louisville in the fall, a fact that couldn't make his family prouder.
“We really thought that this was something that maybe they were blowing out of proportion a little bit and then reality set in,” Ethan’s stepfather Duggin George said. “And the reality is that people are getting sick, people are dying and I think they’re doing the right thing.”
If Kentucky students were to return to classes at the beginning of May, many would have close to two weeks before the end of the semester.
