At midnight on Oct. 1, the federal U.S. government shut down for the first time since 1995 when Congress failed to pass a continuing resolution to maintain spending for the then-upcoming fiscal year. This is largely due to a heated dispute between Republicans in the House of Representatives and Democrats in the Senate over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which occurred on the same day.

Krishna Pathak, Politics Club president and junior, said he believes most students were not previously aware that the federal government could shut down.

He said, “(Students) were all just confused because ‘government shutdown’ brings the worst connotation.”

“We’re in a situation that we have not seen in a long, long time, where in order to block a law going into effect, one house of the national legislature has effectively blocked the funding of the government,” history teacher Karen Taff said.

According to Taff, awareness of the shutdown is spreading among students as time passes and the stakes increase.

“If, for example, my students are doing research for a research paper and they want to go to the Library of Congress website, or if they’re researching a Civil War battle and go to the national park service site for the Battle of Gettysburg, and they get a sign that says the site is shut down, that creates sort of an ‘aha’ moment,” she said.

Theresa Ramos, media and communications department chair, said she agrees that the closure of certain websites entails a significant impact of the government shutdown on this school’s students.

According to her, students who have a time-sensitive information need should be aware that some resources are unavailable.

“I think it is horrible that the government has created this situation. We are living in the information age, and now we are cut off from that information,” she said. “Can we find the information elsewhere? Probably. But students and teachers may need help to do so. It may be a lot more difficult to access or it may not be available at all. It just depends on what it is.”

However, the effects of a shutdown can extend beyond difficulty for students and teachers of obtaining information.

“It might not affect you personally, but it affects our nation as a whole and everything we stand for—the inability of our legislative body to even come to a compromise on a budget, leading to a shutdown of the majority of our national government,” Pathak said. “No nation should endure that.”

Taff said she advises students to be aware of the shutdown even if it does not touch them at a personal level.

“When the world’s greatest democracy is ceasing to function, that’s an unprecedented moment. Living here in Carmel, we all have very busy lives, and when we get wrapped up in our own thing, we forget that the rest of the world is watching us, and the rest of the world is watching very basic, fundamental measures being taken to continue operating this country,” she said. “You have a situation where people who are in uniform are being expected to come to work every day to serve our country, but they’re not getting paid. You have a situation where civilian workers are being told, ‘Do not come to work, and you will not get paid.’ For us, because you’re a student or a teacher, that might not seem immediately to be an issue, but it’s a pretty big issue.”

It may become even more of an issue if Congress fails to vote to raise the debt limit by Oct. 17, which could result in the nation’s defaulting on its legal obligations. In that case, according to Taff, everybody at this school will be affected. However, she said she does not know how the government shutdown will pan out.

“We are in uncharted waters. The tracks are being laid as the train is moving down them. I can’t speak to (the outcome of the shutdown), but I can say we have had moments in our history in the past where the wheels of governance have ground to a halt because of the actions of an intransigent minority,” she said.

In the meantime, Taff said, students should pay attention and vote when they can.

“The reason that the public schools exist is to help create an informed, responsible citizenry. Even though students are not yet 18, although many of our seniors are 18, you are at 15, 16, 17 in training to be an informed citizen,” she said. “As Jefferson said, we really need an informed citizenry to make the democracy function.”