Editorial | A Back-to-School Message and a Surprise From Us

Welcome+to+The+Raider+Voice+2021-2022%21

Monica Rodriguez

Welcome to The Raider Voice 2021-2022!

Kathleen Lewis, Editor-in-Chief

Welcome back from the new staff of The Raider Voice! We met up for a summer bootcamp to plan our content for the year. Look to us to cover stories that matter to you.  (Photo by M. Rodriguez)

 

If you expected the COVID-19 pandemic to be over by now, you’re just like the rest of us… 

As students and faculty get déja vu pulling out their masks to enter campus, we are reminded that despite how exhausted we are of hearing about new protocols and variants, the reality is that we are still living amidst a global pandemic, and our community’s safety rests in our own hands.

The biggest obstacle to our collective mission of ending the pandemic isn’t the continuance of mask mandates: it’s Miami-Dade County’s widespread reluctance to receive COVID-19 vaccines. As Florida remains one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hotspots, Miami-Dade County maintains a rising average of more than three thousand cases daily, with almost 40% of the population unvaccinated. While Gulliver does not require students and faculty to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, The Raider Voice editorial board encourages our readers to consider what getting a vaccine means for our school community. It means the “Blue Zoo” filled with fans during games. It means seeing the mask-free faces of our classmates and teachers, and enjoying as normal and fun a year as possible. It means the senior class being able to experience the traditions and milestones of their last year of high school. In short, a decision to join the hundreds of fully vaccinated students and faculty members is an apolitical way to get one step closer to a lifestyle uninterrupted by the pandemic.

The good news is that there are also some more welcome changes this year: no more forgetting to fill out the Safety App, no more awkward group project breakout rooms on Zoom, and no more having to redirect our routes on the way to class or lunch because of the (infamous) arrows. Along with the full return to in-person school, there is something our staff is excited to announce: after a three-year suspension, we’ll be resuming printing The Raider Voice! The newspaper will come in the form of a special edition magazine at the end of each quarter of the school year, featuring exclusive pieces, colorful designs, and lots of other new content for everyone in the school community to enjoy. We hope that you are as interested in seeing it as we are in creating it.

In the meantime, our Campus Voices box is open to new op-ed columnists and opinion writers. Campus Voices is an opportunity for students outside the staff to express themselves and use their voices by publishing their writing on our newspaper platform. Click here to see some of last year’s submissions, and here to meet our new staff members (photos and bios will be updated soon.) As a newspaper staff, we always strive to embody Gulliver Prep’s values, connect our school community, and give students a voice to inspire positive change on campus.