NJROTC is among many of the programs that has been limited because of Covid. Because this is such a hands-on class, one of the major things that made this class difficult was having cohorts in the beginning of the school year, it made it difficult for teacher, Michael Gorski, to figure out how he was going to run his class. So, he came up with a solution that worked well for him and his students, it was a plan that still gave this class its full potential.

     “Let’s do drill, PT, team building and leadership exercises, while there here in school, and let’s do the academics while they’re at home,” Gorski said.

Having the cohorts was especially hard for the students, even though it was difficult, they still felt like they got full potential out of this class. 

     “It was very interesting not having full sized classes and not having a lot of kids in classes, it definitely affected how normal classes would run…it was really nice in the cohorts to be able to get smaller classes even though it affected how we ran our classes, it was really nice because I feel like I got to know the freshman a little better,” Junior lieutenant Mackaylia Hernandez said. 

     When it came down to competitions, they weren’t able to go anywhere and compete against other schools, but they were able to do virtual competitions. In a normal year, there are typically two types of competitions, there’s in person competitions and there’s postals, another type of competition where they do there competition at the school and they record it, then they send it in to be judged, this is a competition that they have been able to do because it is virtual. 

     “Trying to keep the drill team motivated when you have Covid and everybody’s relatively sure, in their minds anyway, that they’re not going to have a drill competition is difficult… and it’s not just my challenge, it’s a challenge for the cadets as well, we have a cadet staff, we have a cadet commanding officer, and a whole cadet chain of command and so they’ve been working on the challenges as well, it’s good to see that they’re still motivated to try and keep everybody engaged.”

     NJROTC is a big part of the community as well, they do color guard at almost every sports game, and they do a lot out in town too, but they have cancelled everything out in town until further notice. Also, in the past they have driven to shooting competitions,but they didn’t get to go to this year. They also typically do a ROTC ball, they have an awards ceremony, they also host a Cpirch competition as well, but along with many other events, these have been canceled.

     If you are interested in joining, but you are unsure, every Thursday, you can go to the ROTC room and they will help you learn how to toss a rifle and other skills. 

     This year has been very different for everyone, but NJROTC has been trying to see the good, and just move along with the school year.