Bridgewater, Va. – On Monday, March 30, Virginia Governor Ralph Norton, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser issued stay-at-home orders. The stay-at-home order means that people are not allowed outside their homes for anything except essential things until further notice. 

It’s what’s best for our communities, but it’s not what’s best for the students who are in school. When at school, most students need quiet places to study or do homework with zero or limited distractions. By all schools being closed, that changes things for students.

Students who need quiet or limited distractions to study or do homework may suffer due to their situations in their homelife. Students with younger siblings in their household makes it harder to be a student, because in some families, that same student easily could be the one taking care of their siblings while their parents are at work. This is affecting their studies and making it harder to focus and take their online classes.

In other ways, the stay-at-home order makes it harder for students to be students. Each student who goes to Bridgewater has different situations when it comes to financial income. There are students whose financial situations aren’t the best, meaning they may not have access to Wi-Fi, a computer or even books. The stay-home order affects those students because it shuts down the libraries that have all of the essentials needed for attending online classes.

The stay-at-home order affects not just students academically, but also financially. Many students, whether at home or school, depend on their jobs to help back at home or just to help themselves. This order is jeopardizing a lot of students’ livelihoods. In the DMV area, there are jobs still open but they are predominately in fast-food, retail and construction. Not all students work in these fields, and they are taking a major hit. True, they could apply to those types of jobs while the stay-at-home order is in place; however, the time it would take to get hired and do the interview process, they will have lost out on at least two to four weeks of pay. 

Though Congress and President Trump are sending stimulus checks to taxpayers, they will not be sent to those who can be claimed by someone else as a dependent. This means students have a slim chance of receiving a check to tie them over until they can find another job.

It’s a hard time to be a student who needs quiet and who relies on working.