What specifically has been canceled for Science Olympiad because of school closing?

So it’s been pretty much like, the rest of the season has essentially been canceled. We first found out I think about, I think it was exactly a week ago, our state tournament issued the official notice that they were canceling. And then I believe one or two days after that the national tournament issued a similar statement saying that they were canceling and we kind of already saw it coming because before our state tournament got canceled, a lot of states had already been canceling. So we figured it was kind of just a matter of time. And then of course, with the school cancellation, that shut down any potential meetings that we had during this time

Are you planning to replace any events or still plan things once school is back in session?

Oh, yes, we are. So as soon as school starts again, assuming that it does before June, we’re planning on still running elections to elect the leadership for next year. And then in addition to that, with some of the senior members, they’re going to be running kind of workshop type events to teach younger, newer members about some of the different events in Science Olympiad and make sure that hopefully, the team will come back stronger next year.

Overall, how has the club been impacted by this? 

It was definitely not a fun day when we found out that everything was gonna get canceled, because especially this year, I think this has probably been one of our strongest teams ever, if not the strongest team ever, for sure in my four years in Science Olympiad, so it’s kind of disappointing to kind of work up to something for nine months, since last summer, and then kind of see it all canceled right before the biggest two competitions of the entire season.

What is the club’s plan going forward?

We’re not gonna have tournaments this year anymore. It’s mainly just planning for this year at this point. So I kind of touched on it earlier, but just transitioning the leadership, educating the younger members to make sure that we kind of have a head start on next year. But in terms of like official competition, nothing else will be happening.